By Amy Caren Daniel and Medha Singh
(Reuters) - Upbeat data and rising oil prices helped European stock markets eke out some marginal gains on Friday, offsetting another jolt for chipmakers from the fallout of a U.S. ban on trading with Huawei Technologies.
At the end of a week that has seen European markets gain around 2%, and bond yields and the euro sink, escalating tensions between Washington and Iran also gave investors reason to be cautious about pushing ahead with this month's rally.
Helped by gains in oil prices that drove shares in Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSa), BP (LON:BP) and Total higher, the pan-regional STOXX 600 index was just 0.05% higher by 0800 GMT.
The benchmark index, has rallied nearly 5% so far this month, on signals from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank that they were ready to act to counter the impact of U.S.-China trade tensions on a slowing global economy.
"There is probably lingering positivity from the broadly dovish central bank statements this week from the ECB and the Fed," said Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex in London.
"That rally maybe running out of steam a little bit but it seems to be keeping the indexes in the green."
Investors will now look to a G20 summit in Japan next week for progress from the United States and China on resolving the differences that drove the worst monthly performance in European stock markets in more than two years in May.
Frankfurt's Dax recouped early losses to trade 0.21% higher after a survey on Friday showed higher activity in Germany's services and manufacturing sector edged higher in June, suggesting that growth in Europe's biggest economy has stabilized at a moderate pace in the second quarter.
Other surveys showed French business activity strengthened more than expected in June, and euro zone business activity picked up a touch this month.
"Both the French and German figures were better than expected but also firmly in contraction territory," said Campbell.
The technology index fell 0.4%, and was among the biggest fallers, as British wafer maker IQE Plc warned it would report lower-than-expected revenue in 2019, citing the impact of the Huawei ban.
Semiconductor companies were the hardest hit with Infineon, AMS and STMicroelectronics, Siltronic, Dialog Semiconductor dropping between 1.2% and 3.2%.
Spain's IBEX rose 0.7%, outperforming most European indexes.