Paris - French shares were mixed in early Thursday trading in the wake of overnight losses on Wall Street and Asian markets.

Frankfurt - European shares struggled to hold on to gains Thursday after a slump in Wall Street and a mixed performance of bourses across Asia.

Amid renewed concerns about the outlook for the global economy and corporate profits, Europe's blue-chip Stoxx 50 began the trading day edging up 0.7 per cent to 2,286 points.

Reflecting the nervous investment climate shares in London gained 0.90 per cent in early trading. Paris' CAC 40 index posted a 0.37-per-cent increase. However, Frankfurt lost 0.51 per cent in early trading.

The oil price managed to pull back from recent losses, rising by 0.2 per cent to 66.87 70 dollars a barrel. In July energy prices were heading towards 150 dollars a barrel.

Seoul - Shares continued their freefall Thursda

The 30-share index Sensex, which had suffered a heavy loss earlier this morning, recovered over 200 points from today’s lows, touching a high of 9,968.12.

Metal, realty, banking, oil & gas stocks led the declining charts.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index fell 2.52% and 2.26% respectively.

After opened the day negatively at 9,683.41, down 486.49 points, the Sensex crashed to 9681.28 following a massive sell-off in front line stocks.

At 10:59 a.m., Sensex stood at 9,926.09, down 243.81 points, after hitting a high of 9,928.11 and a low of 9,681.28.

Hanoi - Vietnam's stock market fell sharply on Thursday as local traders scrambled to sell after the previous day's plunges on the global market and on fears that foreigners will withdraw from the local exchange, securities experts said.

Despite prime rate cuts by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) from 14 to 13 per cent last Tuesday, the volatile VN-Index ended Thursday down 3.86 per cent, to close at 360, the lowest level since February 2006.

"Local traders' sentiments have been badly affected by plummets on global stock markets," said Phan Hong Quan, Director of Eurocapital Securities. "That fact that foreigners were net sellers over the past ten sessions has made local traders worried."

Mumbai, Oct 23 : The benchmark Sensex tumbled by over 488 points and again dipped below the 10,000-mark in early trade on Thursday.

The Indian Rupee also hit a record low of 49.68 against the US dollar at the forex market.

Retail investors dumped stocks due to melting global stock markets and dismal quarterly results by some corporates.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) index Nifty also tumbled by 147.05 points, or 4.13 per cent to 2,918.10.