European markets are in positive territory in afternoon trading Friday, as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet as part of his efforts to gather support for the Socialist government's austerity measures to avoid default. Commodities have cut their losses and U.S. stock index futures have turned positive.
Current Defense Minister Evangelos Venizelos will be the new Finance Minister of Greece, a government spokesperson said.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks is adding 1.54 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, is gaining 0.58 percent.
The German DAX is adding 1.20 percent, while the French CAC 40 is rising 1.15 percent. The UK's FTSE 100 is advancing 0.33 percent and Switzerland's SMI is falling 0.22 percent.
Among the DAX components, K+S is falling 2.1 percent. Basf and Bayer are sliding 0.8 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.
Chipmaker Infineon Technologies is losing 2.1 percent. Business software maker SAP is up 0.2 percent.
Commerzbank is falling 0.6 percent, while Deutsche Bank is adding 1.1 percent.
Daimler and BMW are falling 0.5 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively. JPMorgan cut its price target for Daimler to 77 euros from 79 euros, but raised BMW's price target to 88 euros from 71 euros.
Volkswagen is adding 0.1 percent after the company said its vehicle deliveries for May climbed 17.4 percent, reflecting stable increase in deliveries for all brands.
Deutsche Post is falling 1 percent. Goldman Sachs reduced its price target on the stock to 16.20 euros from 17.70 euros.
Outside the main index, Brenntag is falling over 1 percent in Frankfurt even after the pharmaceutical firm's price target was raised to 102 euros from 90 euros at Goldman Sachs.
Medical services firm Celesio is falling about 11 percent as several analysts reduced their price targets on the stock.
Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale are gaining between 1.5 percent and 0.9 percent in Paris.
Grocery retailer Carrefour is declining 2.1 percent. Unicredit cut its price target on the stock to 30 euros from 33 euros, while JPMorgan kept the stock at "Overweight" with a price target of 45 euros.
ArcelorMittal is falling 0.6 percent. Goldman Sachs cut its price target on the steel giant to 33 euros from 34 euros.
In London, Anglo American is gaining 1.4 percent and BHP Billiton is advancing 0.55 percent. Kazakhmys and Rio Tinto are rising 1.1 percent.
India's Tata Steel Ltd. is selling its entire 26.27 percent stake in Australian coking coal miner Riversdale Mining Ltd. to Rio Tinto for $1.12 billion.
HSBC Holdings is losing 1.23 percent. Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group are falling.
BP is down 0.5 percent and BG Group is falling 0.9 percent, while Royal Dutch Shell is adding 0.4 percent. Weir Group is down 1.2 percent.
Chipmaker ARM Holdings is down 0.5 percent after announcing the purchase of Obsidian Software.
In economic news, the euro area trade balance showed a shortfall of 4.1 billion euros in April compared to a surplus of 1.6 billion euros in March, data from Eurostat showed. Economists had forecast a shortfall of 1.9 billion euros for April.
Across Asia/Pacific, most major markets ended lower. China's Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.77 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng retreated 1.17 percent and Japan's Nikkei 225 gave up 0.64 percent. However, Australia's All Ordinaries edged up 0.1 percent.
In the U.S., futures point to a higher open on Wall Street. In the previous session, the major averages bounced back and forth across the unchanged line before closing mixed. The Dow rose 0.5 percent and the S&P 500 added 0.2 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.3 percent.
In the commodity space, crude for July delivery is declining $1.19 to $93.76 per barrel and August gold is sliding $0.4 to $1529.5 a troy ounce.
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