Equity markets rose going into the weekend on Friday following a broadly positive lead from Wall Street as a mixed bag of US data did little to change expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week.

Investors have in recent sessions struggled to match last week's healthy gains fuelled by comments from central bank officials indicating their preference for a further easing of monetary policy.

However, optimism has been helped by reports reinforcing the view that the jobs market is softening, including payrolls firm ADP saying more than 30,000 posts were lost in November.

And while figures Thursday on jobless claims and layoffs came in slightly better than expected, markets have priced the chances of a rate cut next Wednesday at around 90 percent.

Focus is now on the

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