Futures indicate a rise of more than 1% for Paris's CAC 40, a 0.4% increase for Frankfurt's DAX, a 0.2% gain for London's FTSE, and a 0.4% advance for the Euro STOXX 50.

Investors are expected to continue digesting yesterday's figures from the Department of Labor, which far exceeded forecasts and helped somewhat ease concerns about the possibility of an overly sharp slowdown in the U.S. labor market.

Eagerly awaited after a string of worrying data on the U.S. economy, the report showed that the number of nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 130,000 in January, while economists had expected around 70,000.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 4.3% last month, a drop even steeper than anticipated, as the consensus had expected stability at 4.4%, the same as the previous month.

The U.S. labor market has been under close scrutiny from investors since Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, last fall made the continuation of the central bank's monetary easing cycle conditional on developments in U.S. job creation.

"In the short term, yesterday's publication can be considered 'good news' for equities, which seems appropriate to us as the data shows no risk of labor market deterioration, while still leaving room for further rate cuts, whether next month or in 2026," says Jeff Schulze, Head of Economic and Market Strategy at ClearBridge Investments.

"This dynamic should support risk assets in the short term," assures the analyst from the Franklin Templeton subsidiary.

However, the reaction from stock markets proved more mixed. The Dow Jones index slipped 0.1% last night, the S&P 500 ended virtually unchanged, and the Nasdaq fell by 0.2%.

In Europe, while the CAC 40 came close to breaking its record from January 9, the index ultimately slipped 0.2% to 8,313.24 points after three consecutive sessions in the green. The Euro STOXX 50 recorded a second straight session of decline, dropping 0.1% to 6,039.80 points.

"At the moment, it's no longer the global economy moving the markets," explain strategists at Danske Bank.

"What's now shifting the lines is the fear of being devoured by AI," says the Canadian bank.

"Investors are currently offloading software publishers and any stocks they view as 'AI losers' to reallocate their money into more traditional sectors," add analysts at Danske Bank.

The phenomenon was particularly striking yesterday in Europe, where investors heavily punished the results of Dassault Systèmes (-20.8%) while shedding holdings in Publicis (-8.7%) and Capgemini (-8%), even as they rushed into Ahold Delhaize (+11%) and Siemens Energy (+8%).

The next test is set for tomorrow with the release of the U.S. monthly consumer price statistics, which could show whether markets are right to anticipate a decline in inflation or even allow them to fine-tune their bets on the timing of the Fed's next rate cut.

Consensus expects a slowdown to 2.5% in January's core CPI, compared to 2.6% the previous month.

Until then, market attention will focus on the latest batch of corporate results released in Europe, including several heavyweights such as AB InBev, Adyen, Hermès, Legrand, Mercedes-Benz, and Siemens.

On the currency market, the euro is stabilizing around 1.1870 against the dollar, which had regained ground against the single currency following January's strong jobs figures.

Yields on U.S. Treasury bonds remain on the rise, above 4.17% for the ten-year, while in the European market, the German ten-year is unchanged at 2.80%.

Commodity prices are moving in mixed fashion ahead of tomorrow's U.S. inflation data, with gold slipping 0.3% to 5,085.3 points.

As for oil, Brent is up 0.3% at $69.6 a barrel and U.S. light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) is gaining 0.4% at $64.8.