Europe open: Stocks slip on oil price weakness

European stocks were trading on a mixed note on Thursday morning, mimicking the performance of Wall Street's main stock indices overnight due to weakness in oil futures as investors continued to reassess prospects for the global economy.

As of 0905 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 was little changed, trading higher by 0.08% to 377.54, alongside a 0.49% bounce in the Cac-40 to 5,029.68, although Germany's Dax was drifting lower by 0.04% to 112,018.08.

In parallel, front month Brent crude oil futures were bouncing back by 0.73% to $53.32 a barrel on the ICE while euro/dollar was up by 0.49% to 1.0764.

"Markets are realising that the ambitious reflation expectations that we had at the beginning of this year are starting to get reassessed in the context of the ability of the new US administration to deliver anything meaningful on either tax reform or increased infrastructure spending over the next few months," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

In the background, the first round of voting in France's presidential elections, on 23 April were looming ever closer.

On the economic calendar for Thursday, markets were waiting on euro area construction output data for February at 10:00 GMT, followed by consumer confidence figures for the month of April at 15:00 GMT.

Stateside, the Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia's manufacturing gauge for April is scheduled to be published at 13:30 GMT, together with the latest weekly unemployment claims data.

A trade union in the Netherlands said it will meet with PPG Industries to discuss its €24.6bn takeover bid for Akzo Nobel after the latter unveiled a strategic plan which envisages staff reductions.

China's HNA recently approached Spain's Abertis regarding an alternative bid to that from Italy's Atlantia, Il Sole 24 Ore reported.