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European stocks fluctuated between gains and losses as investors awaited a policy meeting by the euro area’s central bank, amid speculation on the timing of a Spanish bailout. U.S. index futures and Asian shares climbed.

Halfords Group Plc (HFD) surged the most ever after saying earnings will be in the upper half of its previous forecast. Nobel Biocare Holding AG (NOBN) slid 6.8 percent as the world’s second- biggest maker of dental implants said full-year profit will be affected by a deteriorating Japanese market.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) slipped 0.2 percent to 270.93 at 9:30 a.m. in London, having earlier gained as much as 0.5 percent. The benchmark measure fell 2.7 percent last week as Germany and France disagreed on the timing of a banking union in the euro area and concern grew that the latest round of U.S. stimulus won’t be enough to spur growth. The gauge has still climbed 11 percent this year.

“Traders are gearing themselves up for two days of important economic announcements,” Daniel Victory, a trader at Capital Spreads, wrote in e-mailed comments. Tommorow’s U.S. payrolls data will see “either the bulls or the bears really take a stranglehold on markets that have been range-bound for the past two weeks.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures climbed 0.3 percent today, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.5 percent.
Rate Decisions

The European Central Bank will keep its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.75 percent, economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted before its monthly policy meeting in Ljubljana today. The ECB will announce the decision at 1:45 p.m. local time, 45 minutes before its president, Mario Draghi, speaks at a press briefing. The ECB holds its Governing Council meeting away from Frankfurt twice a year.

The Bank of England will maintain its bond-purchase target at 375 billion pounds ($604 billion) and keep its key interest rate at 0.5 percent, according to the median estimates of economists in separate Bloomberg surveys. The decision is due at noon in London.

Spain is seeking to sell as much as 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion) of government debt at an auction today. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has refrained from seeking a bailout for the indebted country, a month after the ECB announced an unlimited bond-buying plan to bring down borrowing costs in Spain and Italy.

Investors are also waiting for U.S. data on employment and factory orders, before a monthly payrolls report tomorrow.

Initial jobless claims increased to 370,000 last week, from 359,000 in the prior period, economists predicted before a Labor Department report due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington. Another release may show factory orders declined 5.9 percent in August, after increasing 2.8 percent a month earlier, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The Federal Reserve Open Committee will release minutes from the latest policy meeting at 2 p.m. New York time, after European markets close.

To contact the reporter on this story: Namitha Jagadeesh in London at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at [email protected]

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