LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - European stocks were treading water at the start of the session despite a slightly stronger-than-expected batch of earnings from various US tech heavyweights overnight and amid simmering tensions with North Korea.
As of 08:13 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 is of fy 0.12% to 387.37, while the German Dax is flat at 12,443.75 and the Cac-40 is edging higher by 0.04% to 5,272.70.

Overnight, shares in Microsoft slipped 0.45% and those of Intel by 3.55% following their first quarter numbers, but Facebook, Amazon.com and Alphabet were all higher after their own updates to investors.

In parallel, US president Donald Trump warned that a "major, major" conflict with North Korea was possible although he preferred a diplomatic solution.

Against that backdrop, all eyes were on the latest euro area consumer price data scheduled for release at 10:00 GMT, with investors keen to assess whether inflation is as tame as European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said the night before.

"European markets recent winning streak came to an end yesterday despite the ECB striking an unexpected shift in tone with respect to recent economic data in the euro area. [...] The strength of recent economic data was always going to make it difficult for the ECB to be too downbeat, however Mr Draghi's get out of jail free card was, as expected, the weak inflation outlook, particularly core prices which are still below 1%, and he used it to good effect.

"The last thing the ECB wants is the markets front running a higher euro and a rise in yields, particularly given that Italy has several billion euros of bonds that need rolling over in the coming weeks," Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets told clients.

Still on the economic calendar for Friday are US first quarter gross domestic product figures at 13:30 GMT, followed by the release of the Chicago PMI at 14:45 GMT and the University of Michigan's consumer confidence gauge at 15:00 GMT.

German retail sales sped ahead at a 2.3% year-on-year clip in March, ahead of the 2.2% rise economists had penciled in.

In parallel, INSEE reported that France's gross domestic product expanded at a 0.3% quarter-on-quarter clip during the first three months of 2017, after an upwardly revised gain of 0.4% during the prior quarter.

German's Thyssen Krupp is looking to sell submarines to Indonesia via a joint-venture with a Turkish partner, according to Handelsblatt.

Italy's Atlantia will sell 10% of its motorway unit to a group of investors including Allianz for €1.48bn.

French drugmaker Sanofi posted better-than-expected first quarter profits.

French construction group Vinci saw revenues jump 5.1% over the first three months of the year.

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