LONDON - World stock markets traded in a narrow range Thursday amid growing concerns of an overheating Chinese economy and as investors awaited more U.S. economic data over the rest of the week for further insights into the state of the U.S. economic recovery.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.19 point at 5,639.38 while the CAC-40 in France was less than a point lower at 3,942.88. Germany's DAX rose 9.09 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5,945.81.
Wall Street was also poised for a fairly subdued opening - Dow futures were down 9 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 10,556, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 futures fell 2.4 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 1,143.30.
"Financial markets are finely poised," said Kit Juckes, chief economist at ECU Group.
Juckes reckons that much will hinge on whether the S&P 500 can break through its previous high of 1,150 or not - on Wednesday, the S&P 500 closed up 5.16 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 1,145.61.
"My bets, unchanged of late, are that equities break out to the upside," he added.
U.S. stocks in particular may be jolted out of their current torpor by weekly jobless claims figures later - the consensus in the markets is that claims will drop modestly to around 460,000 last week from 469,000 in the previous week.
More will come on Friday when U.S. retail sales and consumer sentiment figures, which should shine a light on the state of consumption in the U.S. The state of the U.S. consumer is particularly important for the U.S. economy as retail spending accounts for around 70 per cent of the world's largest economy.
Earlier in Asia, worries about rising inflationary pressures in China reined in any buying momentum, though Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average gained 88.91 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 10,653.70 as investors were boosted by a news report the government will soon upgrade its economic assessment for this year.
The markets are wary at the moment by concerns that the monetary authorities in China may start raising interest rates soon to keep a lid on mounting inflationary pressures - figures earlier showed that China's inflation rate jumped to 2.7 per cent in February over a year earlier from 1.5 per cent in January.
Any moves to raise the cost of borrowing in China or curb lending by Chinese banks will stoke concerns around the world that Chinese economic growth will slow down - one of the major reasons behind the global recovery from recession has been elevated growth levels in China.
"The People's Bank of China is behind the curve and needs to take action on the liabilities side of banks' balance sheets," said Diana Choyleva, an analyst at Lombard Street Research.
In Australia too, there was a break in the recent slew of positive economic news. The jobless rate edged up slightly to 5.3 per cent in February, the first rise since peaking at 5.8 per cent last October.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 19.91 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 21,228.20 while South Korea's Kospi shed 0.3 per cent to 1,656.62. China's Shanghai benchmark added 0.1 per cent to 3,051.28 and India's Sensex was up 0.2 per cent.
Elsewhere, Australia's index fell 0.1 per cent and Taiwan's market retreated 0.4 per cent.
Oil prices were steady with benchmark crude for April delivery up 2 cents to $82.11 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 60 cents to settle at $82.09 on Wednesday.
Currency markets were also pretty subdued with the euro unchanged at $1.3660 and the dollar down 0.1 per cent at 90.41 yen.