LONDON (AFP) - European stock markets were mixed in early trading, in the wake of a varied performance on Wall Street, with shares in London supported by expectations of a pause in interest rates, dealers said.
The London FTSE 100 index rose 0.16 percent to 4,624.70 points, the Frankfurt DAX climbed also by 0.16 percent to 3,940.40 points while in Paris the CAC 40 eased 0.11 percent to 3,683.56.
The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares was unchanged at 2,786.57 points.
The euro stood at 1.2617 dollars.
US stocks closed mixed Thursday with blue chips weighed down by troubling economic news, strong oil prices and a tumbling dollar.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.21 percent at 9,865.76 points while the tech-laden Nasdaq composite gained 1.07 percent to 1,953.62, posting its highest close since October 7.
The Nasdaq closed at the highest level in two weeks in the wake of an upbeat earnings report from eBay, traders said.
The broad market Standard and Poor's 500 index climbed 0.26 percent to 1,106.49 points.
In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei-225 index closed 0.63 percent higher at 10,857.13 points Friday, supported by better-than-expected Chinese economic data and overnight gains in US tech stocks, dealers said.
China's growth rate slowed slightly in the third quarter, according to figures Friday, suggesting that government efforts to cool the economy are having some but possibly not enough of an impact.
For the three months to September, the economy grew 9.1 percent compared with a year earlier, after recording 9.8 percent in the first quarter and 9.6 percent in the second, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
Metals and mining stocks rose in London on suggestions Chinese demand for commodities would remain robust, dealers said. Xstrata added 2.29 percent to 894 pence, Rio Tinto gained 0.69 percent to 1,460 pence and BHP Billiton won 0.70 percent to 571.5 pence.
In London the market was digesting news that the British economy grew by 0.4 percent in the third quarter of 2004 from the second quarter of the year, the slowest rate of growth since the first quarter of 2003.
But the data could be a positive for shares, since it meant that the Bank of England was likely to sit tight on interest rates, dealers said.
Shares in European media companies were meanwhile sharply lower on worries that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer may probe the music industry, dealers said.
The US probe would focus particularly on the music industry's practices for influencing which songs are heard on the public airwaves.
Shares in French media group Vivendi Universal fell 2.57 percent to 20.87 euros in Paris and EMI lost 2.73 percent to 214 pence in London.
Vivendi shares "fell because of the New York Times report on a probe of music businesses in the United States", a Paris dealer said.
Elsewhere, Kidde soared by 19.5 percent to 173.25 pence as the British fire and safety product manufacturer confirmed it had rebuffed a takeover bid from United Technologies Corp., the US-based engineering giant.
10/22/2004 - 12:33 GMT - AFP