European stocks end the week higher helped by miners

European markets rebounded Friday to end the week on an upbeat note, boosted mainly by rising mining stocks, with Paris leading the pack of gainers. The CAC 40 in Paris finished the day 0.75 percent higher at 4,123.89 points -- setting a new year high for the third time this week -- while London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares rose 0.26 percent to end at 6,499.99 points and Frankfurt's DAX 30 won 0.19 percent to close at 8,391.94 points. "The best performing sector has been basic resources after chatter in Asia markets that Chinese authorities might be looking to announce a new stimulus programme, though it has been the precious metals miners that have jumped the most with Randgold Resources and Fresnillo getting a turbo boost from a sharp rise in silver and gold prices overnight," CMC Markets UK analyst Michael Hewson said. Mining giant Anglo American shot up 3.48 percent to 1,547,5 pence and Fresnillo jumped 4.2 percent to 1,172 pence. Glencore Xstrata rose 2.17 percent to 308.35 pence. The pick-up in market activity came after an initial dip on the heel's of Thursday's sell-off that was caused by rising expectations that the US Federal Reserve will shortly begin winding down its huge monetary stimulus programme. In foreign exchange trading, the euro slipped to $1.3320 from $1.3346 late in New York on Thursday. The dollar rose to 97.61 yen from 97.36 yen. Sterling steadied against the dollar and euro after rallying to multi-week highs on Thursday as traders increasingly bet on an earlier-than-expected rise to the Bank of England's main interest rate. Sterling stabilised to 85.28 pence to the euro, having reached 85.05 pence on Thursday, the highest level for six weeks. It had also reached $1.5652, the highest for two months, and was trading at $1.5621 on Friday. The price of gold jumped to $1,369.25 an ounce Friday on the London Bullion Market from $1,329.75 on Thursday. US stocks also rebounded into positive territory on Friday. In midday trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.08 percent, while the broad-based S&P 500 increased 0.04 percent and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.36 percent. New housing starts grew to an annualised pace of 896,000 units, up from 846,000 in June. But starts remained shy of the pace of the January-March 2013 average of 957,000. The release on Thursday of data showing weekly US jobless claims had declined to their lowest level in six years had triggering stock sell-offs as investors saw the figures as a sign the Fed could begin to reduce its $85 billion a month quantitative easing (QE) programme as soon as September. -- Rupee plunges on prospects of capital outflow -- In Asia, India's rupee plunged to a new low of 62.03 rupees to the dollar and stocks plunged 3.97 percent in their sharpest single-day fall in nearly two years on fears that foreign capital could flow back to the United States as the US economy improves.