european stocks are expected to open marginally higher friday as investors digest a slew of central bank rate hikes from the region and beyond the bank of england hiked rates by 50 basis points thursday its seventh consecutive increase and the swiss national bank hiked its benchmark rate to 05 a shift that brings an end to an era of negative rates in europe the us federal reserve meanwhile hiked by another threequarters of a percentage point wednesday and indicated that the hikes will keep on coming