Asian shares posted sharply mixed results on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei rising 1.15%, while China's Shanghai index soared 2.69%. Other indexes weren't so brisk, with Australia's S&P\ASX 200 falling 1.06%. Korea's KOSPI slipped 0.30%, while India's Nifty lost 0.61%.

Wall Street ended Wednesday's trading on a low note, with Dow Jones sliding 50 points, or 0.28% to 17,867. NASDAQ fell 0.05% to 5,142, while S&P 500 lost 7 points, or 0.35% to 2,102.

Dollar took a step back after big gains yesterday, with its index DXY slipping 0.04% to 97.96. Dollar fell 0.06% against Euro to 1.0870, after touching a 14-week high yesterday. Against Sterling, it was flat at 0.7065. It fell 0.05% against Yen to 121.50.

Euro stabilized a bit after big losses yesterday. It rose 0.02% against Sterling to 0.7066 after touching a ten-week low yesterday. It was flat against Yen at 132.09.

Trading in oil was choppy, with Brent futures for December losing 15 cents, or 0.31% to $48.63 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures rose a cent, or 0.02% to $46.33 a barrel.

The fall in oil prices dragged the Canadian dollar down. It lost 0.08% to trade at 1.3161. Australian dollar was almost flat at 0.7149.

Gold futures broke a six-day losing streak, to gain 3 dollars, or 0.27% to $1,109.20 an ounce. Silver futures fell to its lowest in more than a month, losing 2 cents, or 0.15% to trade at $15.03 an ounce.

From Germany, Factory orders for September are forecast to have grown 1.1% m\m, a positive result would help Euro climb from its dismal lows.

From U.K., House prices are forecast to have grown 0.7% m\m in October. British inflation has been near zero for the past months, and a big rise in prices would bring BoE closer to raising rates, which would push Sterling higher.

From U.S., unemployment claims for last week are forecast to come at 263K, higher than the previous week's 260K. A lower than expected result would raise the possibilities of a Fed rate hike in December, pushing the dollar higher.