The French market is in negative territory on Thursday, after some unimpressive earnings news from the region forced investors to exercise caution. Sentiment was also impacted by some mixed cues from Asia.
On the economic front, Eurozone's trade surplus more than doubled in March from a month ago, data published by Eurostat showed. The surplus amounted to 22.9 billion euros in March, higher than 10.1 billion euros in February. In March 2012, the balance was positive at 6.9 billion euros.
Eurozone inflation slowed as initially estimated to 1.2 percent in April from 1.7 percent in March, final data from Eurostat revealed. Month-on-month, prices were down 0.1 percent. Core inflation, which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, fell to 1 percent from 1.5 percent a month ago.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks is falling 0.12 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, is losing 0.23 percent.
The CAC 40 index is currently losing 0.2 percent.
EDF is declining 4.7 percent, followed by Alstom, which is down 3.2 percent. Merrill Lynch cut EDF to ''Underperform'' from ''Neutral.''
Vivendi is falling 2.5 percent as its unit Activision Blizzard is said to be shelving a plan to repurchase shares held by the French media giant.
Societe Generale is in the red, while BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole are in positive territory.
Elsewhere in Europe, the German DAX and Switzerland's SMI are lower while the UK's FTSE 100 is up 0.1 percent.
In Asia/Pacific, markets were mixed. Australia's All Ordinaries slid 0.6 percent and Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.4 percent. On the other hand, China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed 1.2 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.2 percent.
In the U.S., futures point to a weak open on Wall Street. In the previous session, stocks saw some volatility over the course of the trading day before ending the session mostly higher. The Dow rose 0.4 percent, the Nasdaq advanced 0.3 percent and the S&P 500 gained 0.5 percent.
Among commodities, crude for June delivery is falling $0.90 to $93.40 per barrel and June gold is losing $25.7 to $1370.5 a troy ounce.
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