U.S. stocks declined in Thursday's midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 dropped six-tenths of a percent while the NASDAQ moved down 1.2 percent.

European stock prices were down sharply by the end of Thursday's trading. London's Financial Times index slid 1.2 percent to close at 5,385. The CAC-40 in Paris was off 2.3 percent to finish at 3,084 while the DAX index in Frankfurt fell 2.5 percent to hit 5,766.

Earlier in Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei index lost one percent to finish at 8,682. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1.8 percent to finish the day's trading at 17,983.

The price of gold is down more than $32 to trade at $1,608.54 an ounce.

The dollar is up against the yen and the euro.