European markets down ahead of Thursday opening amid mixed sentiment 

European stock futures signaled yet again another negative start before the opening on Thursday as Standard Poor's said that Greece will face another credit event and likely to have to restructure its dept again.

Meantime pessimism dominates the markets as eyes are still on the significant expansion of Spain's budget deficit. Today's session will be focused on heavy data from Germany and the euro area starting with the jobs data from the biggest euro economy and moving to March confidence figures from the euro area.

Looking closely at the euro, we can see the EUR/USD is back once again to trade higher against the dollar on hopes that tomorrow's meeting between the euro zone finance ministers would result in the expansion of the rescue fund. The euro rose from the opening levels of 1.3312 to currently trade at the levels of 1.3330.

As for gold, the metal is back again to trade near the opening, noting that it reached its lowest for the day at 1,656.24 per ounce and its currently trading at 1662.05. Crude oil prices also dropped to trade at 105.27 a barrel compared with the opening level of 105.50 a barrel.

As for the European stocks, the French CAC 40 index futures fell 0.21% at 3422.00. While Germany’s DAX index slumped before markets open to 6982.50 point by 0.40%. Finally, FTSE 100 index futures fell 0.24% to 5743.50.