EU markets see small gains

European markets were in the green this morning, ending a bearish week with a more positive light.

The DAX was 0.68% higher in early trade on Friday, the FTSE 100 gained 0.54% and CAC 40 rose by 0.5% as investors digested a number of economic data released today including UK GDP, France and Spain inflation data and the Eurozone industrial production numbers due later in the session

UK GDP falls

UK GDP was 0.1% lower this quarter, less than the 0.3% drop anticipated by analysts.

Overall, UK economy fell by 0.6% in June – a sharp drop from the 0.5% growth in May. In the first quarter of 2022, UK GDP expanded by 0.8%.

Last week, the Bank of England noted that it expects the UK economy to enter its longest recession since the global financial crisis in the fourth quarter of the year, meanwhile inflation in the country is projected to peak above 13% in October.

Oil higher as Kazakhstan looks to transport crude through Azerbaijan

Brent and Crude oil futures also edged higher on Friday morning with Brent up by 0.28% and valued at $99.56 and Crude up by 0.14% and valued at $94.35.

An exclusive article posted by Reuters this morning said that Kazakhstan was willing to sell some of its crude oil through Azerbaijan from September as the country looks for alternative routes to export its crude that do not pass through Russia.

Kazakh oil exports account for 1% of world supplies, or around 1.4 million barrels per day.

For more than 20 years, Kazakhstan has been shipping its oil through the CPC pipeline to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, that provides access to the global market, however, in July, Russia threatened to shut the CPC, prompting the Kazakh government to look for alternative routes.

Gold futures lower

Gold futures fell by 0.27% and were valued at 1,802.00/oz on Friday morning.

Silver futures also followed the negative trend, down by 0.37%, platinum futures dipped by 0.61% and palladium futures fell by 1.12%.

Sanofi and GSK stocks rebound

Sanofi and GSK led a rebound in healthcare stocks as they rose by 1,34% and 3.16% respectively after a heavy sell-off session in yesterday’s session.

The sell-off was caused by growing worries about US litigation focused on a heartburn drug that contained a probable carcinogen.

Ripple interested in buying assets of the bankrupt Celsius Network

Ripple the blockchain payments company said it was interested to potentially buy assets of the bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network.

“We are interested in learning about Celsius and its assets, and whether any could be relevant to our business,” a spokesperson for the company said.

The Celsius Network froze withdrawals in June citing “extreme” market conditions and filed for bankruptcy in New York in the following month, listing a $1.19bn deficit.

In a comment to Reuters, Ripple said that it submitted filing to the bankruptcy court seeking to be represented in the proceedings. These were approved at the start of the week.

According to Ripple’s spokesperson, the company has gone through the crypto market turmoil and “is actively looking for M&A opportunities to strategically scale the company.”

BTC overall bullish this week, up by more than 3%

Cryptocurrencies have been quite volatile this week but overall bullish as Bitcoin surged by 3.3% this past week rising to as high as $24,000. BTC is currently values at $23,900.

Ethereum (ETH) was 0.3% higher in the past 24 hours. BNB gained 0.24%, Cardano (ADA) was up by 0.35%, and Solana (SOL) gained 0.36%.

The popular Elon Musk-endorsed memetoken Dogecoin (DOGE) was 0.37% higher.