Safe havens like precious metals and Japan's yen fell on Thursday as European stocks surged, recovering some of their heavy losses in the previous two days, while ignoring a six-percent slump in China's stock markets, and also shrugging off sliding oil prices, which would have normally dragged stocks lower with them.

Gold futures lost four dollars, or 0.33% to trade at $1,234 an ounce, edging steadily away from a one-year high at $1,260, while silver futures recorded a bigger loss, dropping 13 cents, or nearly 0.90% to hover around $15.16 an ounce.

European shares made deep inroads as short traders take profits from recent tumbles, with the pan-European index FTSEurofirst 300 climbing about two percent to 1,283, while Germany's DAX jumped 186 points, or a little more than two percent to trade at 9,352. Britain's FTSE index surged 150 points, or 2.60% to hover around 6,021, creeping back above 16,000 again for now.

Oil prices returned lower today on oversupply worries, as expectations fade for any near major production cut to ease the glut choking the markets around the world. Brent futures slipped 20 cents, or 0.55% to $34.21 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures fell 24 cents, or 0.80% to trade at $31.88 a barrel.

Safe-haven yen tumbled today as risk sentiment grew alive again, registering a 0.50% loss against the dollar to hover around 112.77, while the Swiss franc similarly gave up half a percentage point to trade at 0.9936. Other than that, the dollar index was largely flat, trading near its closing level at 97.55.