European Stocks Slip, but Hold Cautiously Bullish Tone

European stocks edged lower Thursday as investors focused on a key interest rate and inflation update later in the session from the Bank of England and pulled back from multi-year highs despite improving economic signals.

The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 Index was marked 0.26% lower at 395.42 in the opening hour of trading but remains, as it has for much of the week, within touching distance of is 52-week high. Britain's FTSE 100 slipped a modest 0.1%, but saw solid gains for oil majors and basic resource stocks after an overnight rally in global commodity prices.

Crude prices were the focus for international trading overnight and again in European hours after a bigger-than-expected 5.2 million barrel fall in U.S. oil supplies was reported yesterday by the Energy Information Administration and renewed support for an extension of OPEC production cuts lifted benchmark levels by the most since December.

This article was written by a staff member of TheStreet.