European stocks mixed, euro slides

Europe's main stock markets moved in mixed directions on Friday while the euro continued to slide against the dollar.
London's FTSE 100 benchmark index edged up 0.03 percent to stand at 6,641.58 points in afternoon trading.
Frankfurt's DAX 30 gave up 0.28 percent to 9,485.17 points and in Paris the CAC 40 index rallied 0.51 percent to 4,377.57 compared with Thursday's closing level.
Madrid's IBEX 35 index grew 0.30 percent after Spain raised its growth and cut its unemployment forecasts.
"The problem many investors are facing is that besides weaker economic growth there is also a lack of new impulses in general which would cause stocks to break through to the upside and post new highs," said Markus Huber, senior trader at brokers Peregrine & Black.
 "Strongly rebounding economic growth or better-than-expected corporate profits would be needed as potential catalysts to draw new money into the markets."
US stocks Friday opened higher, rallying after Thursday's losses following a strong earnings report from Dow member Nike and solid data on second-quarter economic growth.
Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had risen 0.47 percent to 17,025.04 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.27 percent to 1,971.34, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.37 percent to 4,483.16.
Nike rose 9.9 percent as fiscal 2015 first-quarter earnings jumped 23.3 percent to $962 million, besting analyst expectations.
The Commerce Department upwardly revised second-quarter economic growth to an annual rate of 4.6 percent, from 4.2 percent.
US stocks had turned negative on Thursday, led by a sell-off in Apple, which has been hit by complaints about its new operating system and latest iPhone models.
Asian markets mostly fell Friday as traders followed heavy losses on Wall Street.
Tokyo sank 0.88 percent, while Sydney dropped 1.28 percent, leaving it in negative territory for the year to date. Seoul fell 0.12 percent and Hong Kong eased 0.38 percent.
However, Shanghai reversed morning losses to end 0.11 percent higher.
- Ruble hits record low -
In foreign exchange trading on Friday, the European single currency slid to $1.2716 from $1.2750 late in New York on Thursday. The euro had at one point tumbled to $1.2697 on Thursday to record its lowest level since November 2012.
The euro dipped against the British pound, to 78.09 pence from 78.14 on Thursday. The pound slid to $1.6286 from $1.6316.
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold climbed to $1,222.25 an ounce from $1,213.75 an ounce on Thursday.
The euro is coming under pressure from concerns about weak eurozone growth as well as from a strengthening dollar, which is benefiting from US Federal Reserve plans to bring to a stop its stimulus programme in October.
The Russian ruble fell to a record weak level of 39.10 the dollar, breaking through the level of 39 to the greenback for the first time ever.
The new record low, leaving the ruble down nearly a fifth since the start of the year, came as a court stripped a prominent businessman of his stake in an oil company in a case reminiscent of former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky being jailed for a decade and having the Yukos oil company taken from him following accusations of corruption.