European stocks closed slightly up on the heels of sharp rises in the United States on Thursday. However, the benchmark is down around 5 percent this week and has lost some 40 percent so far this year.
Across the continent, Britain’s FTSE, the German DAX and France’s CAC 40 rose between 2.6 and 3.9 percent.

Meanwhile, Oil slipped to 57 dollars a barrel as the US markets opened lower and the euro zone went into recession.

The poor figures had been expected but the state of the markets confirm that consumers and business are keeping cash in their pockets and cutting back on their energy use.

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