Sawt Falasteen - Stocks wobble as inflation fears persist

Wall Street's three main indices opened lower but swung higher in the first half-hour of trading, a day after staging a modest recovery.

London seesawed but was up in afternoon trading while Paris and Frankfurt were down.

"The markets remain skittish following recent hot inflation readings that led to a sharp selloff on Tuesday," analysts at US firm Schwab said in a note.

The data showed US annual consumer price inflation slowing by 8.3 percent in August from 8.5 percent in July but markets had expected a bigger fall.

The reading sparked a rout on equities as it stoked concern of more hefty Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

While higher borrowing costs help to cool inflation, they can also put a brake on economic growth.

Investors were also tracking US government data on Thursday which showed a surprise, 0.3 percent bounce in retail sales in August.

But while the headline gain was much better than the flat result economists had projected, the figure for July was revised down to show a 0.4 percent drop, so the August increase means the total remains below the level in June.

"The key takeaway from the report is that it does not connote much vigor in retail spending activity in August," said analyst Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

Global consumer prices have soared this year on Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- which has hiked energy and food costs -- and because of supply chain strains worsened by Covid lockdowns in China.

Central banks are aggressively hiking interest rates to try and cool prices but this is putting the brakes on economic output, increasing expectations of a global recession.

Analysts said traders have priced in an expected 75 basis-point interest rate hike by the Fed at a meeting next week.

The data "reinforced expectations that the Fed is going to... proceed with further aggressive hikes until inflation comes back under control," said Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada.

Asian bourses mostly logged cautious gains Thursday, but Shanghai and Seoul dipped.

The yen was under pressure as weak Japanese data further fuelled speculation of possible intervention from the Bank of Japan to support the unit.

- Key figures at around 1400 GMT -

London - FTSE 100: UP less than 0.1 percent at 7,283.47 points

Frankfurt - DAX: DOWN 0.1 percent at 13,010.18

Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.6 percent at 6,182.48

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,556.84

New York - Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 31,222.19 points

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.2 percent at 27,875.91 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.4 percent at 18,930.38 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 1.2 percent at 3,199.92 (close)

Dollar/yen: UP at 143.21 yen from 143.08 yen late Wednesday

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0002 from $0.9981

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.1510 from $1.1539

Euro/pound: UP at 86.88 pence from 86.49 pence

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 2.9 percent at $91.37 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.9 percent at $85.95 per barrel

burs-lth/rl

G.AbuGhazaleh--SF-PST