European Stocks Snap Back From Early Losses To End Flat

(RTTNews) - European stocks were flat on Thursday, bouncing back from early losses to finish little changed from the previous session.

Upbeat economic news from the euro zone offset lingering worries about the Ukraine crisis.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks rose 0.06 percent, and is up 0.8 percent on-week.

The German DAX rose 0.32 percent, the French CAC 40 rose 0.26 percent, and the FTSE of the UK inched up 0.07 percent.

Shares of SABMiller PLC gained 3.5 percent after the brewer reported a slight increase in full-year profit.

Royal Mail, which offered a gloomy profit outlook, lost 9.7 percent.

Daily Mail and General Trust surged up 8.9 percent, after reporting its first-half results.

The company's digital media business, Zoopla Property Group, plans to file for an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.

Raiffeisen Bank International, which reported strong quarterly results, is gaining 4.7 percent in Austria.

The Eurozone private sector maintained growth momentum in May as new orders and output in services nullified the moderate weakness in manufacturing.

The flash composite output index came in at 53.9 in May, in line with expectations, but slightly down from 54 in April, figures from Markit Economics revealed Thursday.

In China, the latest flash estimate from HSBC and Markit Economics showed that an index monitoring manufacturing activity in China came in with a score of 49.7 in May. That topped forecasts for a score of 48.3 and was up sharply from 48.1 in April.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve's April meeting showed the pace of eventual interest rate hikes would probably be relatively slow. While Fed officials discussed rate hike procedures at the meeting, no decision was made on mix of policy tools to begin tightening monetary policy.