Summary Gold, euro recover slightly pinning hopes on the US Federal Reserve Data.
LONDON (Reuters) - World shares and bonds steadied on Thursday while gold and the euro recovered slightly after disappointing data buoyed hopes the U.S. Federal Reserve may leave its stimulus programme in place a bit longer previously expected.
The market tone improved overnight after a surprisingly sharp downward revision to first-quarter U.S. economic growth.
While hardly bullish, this calmed immediate fears the Fed would soon wind down the huge bond-buying scheme that has underpinned investors risk appetite.
Another deluge of US data is due throughout Thursday and brighter-than-forecast jobless claims and consumer spending figures released ahead of what was expected to be a third day of gains on Wall Street left focus on the Fed s stimulus plans.
European shares had seen their first session of relative quiet in a week, as they consolidated the 3.2 percent recovery they have enjoyed over the last two days having dropped 11 percent last week.
London s FTSE 100 outshone broadly flat markets in Paris and Frankfurt with a 0.3 percent rise adding to earlier gains in Asia to nudge MSCI s world share index to its highest level in a week.
With the rise in benchmark 10-year US government debt appearing to have stabilised at around 2.5 percent, euro zone bonds from Germany to Greece were able to claw back some of the ground lost during the recent global selloff.
Reflecting the recent rise in yields generally over the last few weeks, Italy paid its highest rate since March at a 5 billion euro auction of 10- and 5- year debt, but healthy demand at the sale saw its bonds top the list of periphery performers.
A deal hammered out by European authorities overnight designed to shift the burden of paying for bank bailouts away from the taxpayer was also in focus although opinion on the deal was mixed among economists.
New figures from the ECB showed lending to euro zone firms continued to contract in May, Ireland slipped back into recession, while France s problems saw its consumer confidence hit an all time low.
But at the same time there was a small pick-up in this month s European Commission consumer and business confidence survey, Germany saw unemployment ease and a data revision meant euro zone neighbour Britain did not suffer a recent "double-dip" recession after all.
After the sharp moves of recent days, there was some respite for precious metals, although there were questions over if it would last.
Spot gold rose 1 percent to $1,235 an ounce, after a 4 percent fall on Wednesday that took the metal to $1,221.80, its lowest since August 2010. Silver, which sank 5.5 percent in the previous session, gained about 2 percent.
Analysts at ABN Amro lowered their end-of-year forecast for gold $200 to $1,100 and said this year s 25 percent drop in gold and near 40 percent plunge in silver prices showed "investors are losing faith in precious metals".
The easing concerns about a pullback in US stimulus helped oil climb above $102 and saw the dollar dip which helped the euro pull up to $1.3035 having dropped to a three-week low on Wednesday.
Steadying Chinese markets, as fears of credit crunch there eased, also helped calm emerging market currencies and stocks.
The Indian rupee recovered from record lows as a lower-than-expected current account gap helped relieve some of the concerns about the battered currency.
