European stocks climbed Thursday as a surge in shares of France's Danone SA and financial stocks helped the benchmark index to break a three-session losing streak.

The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, +1.05% rose 1.1% to close at 322.12, with all sectors gaining ground. The benchmark on Wednesday fell 1.7%, rocked lower as bank and asset manager stocks fell in the wake of the Brexit vote.

U.S. stocks closed mostly lower Thursday, tracking sinking oil prices, but the market pared losses late in the session as investors sought bargains ahead of the closely watched jobs report.

Stocks had opened higher but was under pressure most of the session as oil futures tanked 5% after a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed a smaller-than-expected weekly decline in domestic crude supplies of 2.2 million barrels.

The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.09% slid 1.83 points, or less than 0.1%, to close at 2,097.90. Sharp declines in so-called defensive groups, telecommunications and utilities, weighed on the large-cap benchmark.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.13% came off intraday low to fall 22.74 points, or 0.1%, to 17,895.88. Chevron Corp. CVX, -1.46% and Verizon Communications Inc. VZ, -1.56% were the worst performers among blue-chips.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.36% gained 17.65 points, or 0.4%, to end at 4,876.81 and buck the losing trend for the main stock-market indexes.

Asian stocks looked set to post their biggest weekly loss in three weeks on Friday and government bond yields plunged to fresh record lows as investors awaited U.S. jobs data to get a clearer picture of the health of the world's biggest economy.

Hurt by a steady drip-feed of negative news this week from rising Brexit uncertainty to risks spreading among Italian banks, investment managers sought shelter in the U.S. dollar and gold, signaling a rocky start to the second half of the year.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.4 percent. For the week, it is set to fall 1 percent, its biggest weekly drop since June. 19. Hong Kong stocks .HSI led losers with a fall of 0.9 percent.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 fell 0.4 percent.