By Patrick Graham
LONDON (Reuters) - Stock markets gained on Friday after far stronger than forecast U.S. non-farm payrolls numbers added to a perceived boost to Europe's growth prospects from a new package of Bank of England monetary easing.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index, already up on the day, gained 0.5 percent by 1233 GMT and Wall Street was set to open a third of a percent higher after the payrolls showed employers created 255,000 jobs last month.
That dwarfed analysts' 180,000 median forecast and reinvigorated speculation over the chances of a rise in U.S. Federal Reserve interest rates later this year, pushing the dollar almost a cent higher against the euro.
German 10-year bond yields also hit a day's high of -0.13 percent after the data, up 2 full basis points on the day.
The dollar, which fell 2 percent last week and slipped almost 0.2 against a basket of currencies on Friday, flipped to trade 0.3 percent higher on the day.
More From This Section
(Reporting by Patrick Graham, Nigel Stephenson, Jemima Kelly, and Sudip Kar-Gupta in London)