European stocks added to their gains in late trading on Friday, rising along with U.S. stocks on hopes that dismal U.S. jobs data will speed up Washington's approval of an economic stimulus plan. At 1500 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares was up 2 percent at 827.03 points, on track to record a gain for the week of 3.8 percent. U.S. employers slashed 598,000 jobs in January, the deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years as the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, according to a Labor Department report on Friday that underlined a deepening downturn. "Employers have slashed payrolls by over half a million for the third month in a row and the unemployment rate is rapidly creeping closer to 8 percent, and this is likely to be the case for the first half of 2009," said Martin Slaney, head of derivatives at GFT Global Markets, in London. "The markets have to a certain extent already written off pretty much the first half of 2009 as ugly for jobs, but we will need to see some evidence soon that all the fiscal stimuli are having an effect," he said. Shares of mining companies were among the biggest gainers, climbing along with metal prices on hopes of a recovery in demand. Xstrata (XTA.L) was up 7.5 percent and Anglo American (AAL.L) gained 6.1 percent. Also on the upside, shares in luxury goods group LVMH (LVMH.PA) surged 11 percent after it posted results that reassured investors. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 143.60 points, or 1.78 percent, to 8,206.67. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX gained 13.37 points, or 1.58 percent, to 859.22. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 28.37 points, or 1.83 percent, at 1,574.61. [.N] So far this year, the FTSEurofirst 300 is down 0.8 percent, after tumbling 45 percent last year, hit by a credit crisis that tipped the world economy into a sharp downturn and forced governments to rescue a number of struggling financial institutions.

Source