Advancers

In Europe, carmakers were in focus as Volkswagen shares rose 2 % on speculation that German rival Porsche was to make a full bid for the company after raising its stake to 29.9%.
Porsche, which J.P. Morgan upgraded to neutral from underweight, gained 4.2 %.

DaimlerChrysler shares gained 2.2% on speculation Mr Bernhard may be heading to the rival German manufacturer. Other carmakers also advanced. Renault gained 1.6%, while Peugeot added 3.7 %.


Decliners

Shares of Reed Elsevier the Anglo-Dutch media conglomerate, lost 1.9% after it said that its Harcourt Education division has been impacted by underperformance in the assessment business and a weak textbook market.

Peer Pearson shares slipped 0.3%. Infineon Technologies shares lost ground, down 2.6% in Frankfurt, after the fourth-quarter loss of the company narrowed to a below-forecast 36 million euros, from 100 million euros in the year-ago period.

Oil and gold

Light sweet crude oil for December delivery dropped 2 cents to $58.74 a barrel in electronic trading on the NYME. Gold opened Thursday at a bid price of $623.20 a troy ounce, up from $620.00 late Wednesday.

Currencies

The euro on Thursday slipped slightly against the dollar after U.S. Federal Reserve Bank minutes showed that it remained committed to curbing inflation by hiking interest rates. The euro bought $1.2806 in late morning European trading, compared with $1.2823 in New York late Wednesday. The British pound slipped to $1.8875 from $1.8892. The dollar was steady at 118.05 Japanese yen, the same level it was late Wednesday.