The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 232.40, +2.75, +1.20%) rose 1.2% to 232.31, building on a 1.4% advance made Thursday. Benchmarks tracking German and French equities outpaced the pan-European Stoxx 600. On Friday, surveys pointed to a recovery for the economy. The Markit/CDAF French flash manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.2 in August from 48.1 in July, a 15-month high and above the 50 no-change threshold, while in Germany, manufacturing activity fell at its slowest pace in 12 months in August. The euro-zone services PMI rose to 49.5 in August from 45.7 in July, also setting a 15-month high, while the PMI for the manufacturing sector reached its loftiest in 14 months with a reading of 47.9, up from 46.3 in July. "We had some decent PMI numbers, which you can attribute as one factor for the gains," said Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank. "The numbers are supportive of an economy that does appear to have turned the corner and markets are clearly are taking that on board and taking the opportunity to drive prices up," he said. "It's going to provide decent support for profits in the second half." Sectors performing well in the Stoxx 600 included companies leveraged to economic growth, such as automakers, up 1.9%, and industrials, up 1.7%. At the regional level, the German DAX (DX:DAX 5,401, +89.76, +1.69%) index climbed 1.7% to 5,399.50, while the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,559, +53.24, +1.52%) advanced 1.6% to 3,559.54 and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,805, +48.29, +1.02%) rose 1% to 4,804.03. Asia markets ended mostly lower on Friday, while U.S. stock futures were pointing to gains on Wall Street, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures up 43 points. Read more on Asia Markets. See Indications. UBS shares bid higher Back in the spotlight, shares of UBS (CH:UBSN 17.50, +0.76, +4.54%) (UBS 17.62, +0.69, +4.08%) gained 6%. This week, the Swiss lender reached a settlement with U.S. tax authorities but didn't have to pay a fine. Also, the Swiss government offloaded roughly 332 million shares in the lender, making a net profit of about $1.1 billion in the process. Also making sizable gains, shares of recruitment firm USG People (NL:USG 10.89, +0.96, +9.62%) rallied 10.5% and chemicals firm Rhodia (FR:RHA 8.21, +0.40, +5.16%) added 5.4%. On the downside, shares of Lonza Group (CH:LONN 109.70, +0.10, +0.09%) declined 5.4% after it said its made a non-binding acquisition offer for Patheon (CA:PTI 2.58, -0.07, -2.64%) , a Canadian-listed pharmaceutical services firm. Deutsche Bank analysts said the offer equates to an enterprise value of $700 million, or 8.4 times Patheon's 2008 earnings. "While we expect the deal to be mildly EPS accretive in year two, we struggle with the value creation -- this asset may not reach cost of capital before year five without a meaningful step-up in profitability," they said. Lonza was also cut to sell from neutral by UBS, which cited a more challenging market for biopharmaceutical contract manufacturers as well as the company's "biosimilars" joint venture with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries

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