U.S. stocks were mixed in Thursday's trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose three-tenths of a percent to close at 11,542. The S&P 500 gained half a percent to end at 1,215 while the NASDAQ moved down two-tenths of a percent to reach 2,599.

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 $19 to trade at $1,621.25 an ounce.

The dollar is up against the yen but lost value compared to the euro.