European shares rose on Friday and touched a three-week high ahead of U.S. non-farm payroll data as investors hope the global recovery is still intact, with technology stocks boosted by takeover talk, Reuters reported. Technology stocks featured among the top movers, with the STOXX Europe 600 Technology index up 0.8 percent. Autonomy extended gains from Thursday and rose 3.3 percent. M&A speculation that the software company could find itself at the centre of a takeover battle between Microsoft and Oracle, boosted the stock on Thursday. By 1103 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was 0.4 percent higher at 1,059.55 points after being up as much as 1,060.38 earlier - its highest since Aug. 11. However, volumes on the index were thin at just 17.8 percent of its 90 day average. "All eyes are on U.S. non-farm payrolls. The resilience we have seen in the equity markets this past week is a positive sign that maybe investors are hopeful of a decent number today, but volumes are low," said Joshua Raymond, market strategist at City Index. "Considering the comments that we have had from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and how bad the economic data has been, expectations are fairly low already for non-farm payrolls, which means if we get an in-line figure it may be seen as a positive." The non-farm payrolls, due at 1230 GMT, most likely fell for a third straight month in August as more temporary census jobs ended and cautious businesses scaled back hiring, an outcome that could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to prop up growth.
