European Stocks Seen Subdued On Last Day Of Year

(RTTNews) - European stocks are seen opening lower on Thursday, tracking weak U.S. cues and a mixed trend in Asia ahead of the impending New Year's holiday. Trading activity is likely to remain low as many European markets will close early today for New Year's Eve.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 dropped about 0.7 percent each overnight in low volume trade and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.8 percent, as a sharp fall in oil prices dragged down energy stocks and downbeat housing data stirred some concerns about the state of the economy.

Crude prices held losses in Asian deals after falling over 3 percent on Wednesday amid rising inventories and signs Saudi Arabia will keep adding to the global oil glut. U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley said in its outlook for next year that headwinds are growing for 2016 oil.

Asian shares look set to end the last day of the year on a lackluster note as the slide in oil prices and a firmer dollar on concerns about slower global growth sapped investors' appetite for risk.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde forecast that global economic growth will be "disappointing" and "uneven" in 2016. She said that rising U.S. interest rates, a slowdown in China and the effects of low oil prices were contributing to uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide.

In corporate news, Royal Dutch Shell Plc said that natural gas has started to flow from Ireland's Corrib gas field, marking an important milestone for the country and Shell's upstream operations.

European stocks closed firmly in negative territory on Wednesday on the back of another sell-off in commodities. The German DAX fell 1.1 percent, France's CAC 40 shed half a percent and the FTSE 100 of the U.K. dropped 0.6 percent.

The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 7.3 percent thus far this year as the European Central Bank boosted stimulus to counter deflation.