Leading European stock indices trod water yesterday afternoon as chemicals group Bayer and car exporters were buoyed by the strengthening of the dollar but losses on the Nasdaq weighed on technology shares.
Cautious overnight forecasts by Applied Materials, the world's biggest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, weighed on Dutch peer ASML and several other blue chips in the European technology sector.
By 1600 GMT, with only Frankfurt still officially trading, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index was up 0.04 per cent at 817 points, while the narrower DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index was 0.19 per cent lower at 2,308 points.
Across Europe, London's FTSE 100 closed down 0.6 per cent, Paris's CAC-40 nudged 0.06 per cent lower and Frankfurt's DAX traded 0.25 per cent ahead.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average sagged 0.4 per cent in midday trade, with the Nasdaq Composite down 0.5 per cent.
Investors were chilled by a much weaker-than-expected retail sales report but gave the benefit of the doubt to the April data as the last few days of the Iraq war kept shoppers at home.
US retail sales, excluding autos, fell 0.9 per cent in April, the biggest drop since September 2001, and widely undershooting economists' forecasts for a 0.1-per cent rise in the core retail sales rate, which excludes autos.
"I think we need to see retail sales for May and June and before that the preliminary May consumer confidence survey tomorrow to see if there has been a post-war rebound," said Chloe Magnier, economist at French brokerage CIC.
"If those don't show a progression this would become truly worrying as without consumers, there is nothing left at the present time to sustain an economic rebound in the US".
A weakening in the euro helped ease fears that the single currency's recent gains would hit export earnings in the auto and chemical sectors, though dealers warned the dollar's advance yesterday would only be temporary.
Top chemical companies, hammered in the past two sessions as the euro traded around four-year highs against the greenback, led the advance, with Bayer up 4.7 per cent and sector leader BASF 3.1 per cent higher.
Germany's Porsche led the auto sector higher, gaining two per cent, followed by domestic rival DaimlerChrysler and French peer PSA Peugeot Citroen. Valeo, Europe's largest publicly traded car-parts maker, rebounded 3.1 per cent.