The euro ticked up Thursday on the back of an improving eurozone economy, while a disappointing U.S. retail sales report put pressure on the dollar. 

Despite upbeat European growth, however, debt-saddled Greece confirmed that its economy had slipped back into recession, with no end in sight to tense bailout reform talks with its international creditors.

On days like Wednesday, when the Lebanese parliament convenes for yet another attempt at electing the country's president, shopkeeper Jamal Baghdadi cannot get a single client through the doors of his souvenir shop in Beirut's historic city center, a stone's throw from the landmark limestone building.

Every road around the Lebanese capital's Place de l'Etoile is closed off — both to cars and pedestrians, as well as anyone without a valid employee badge for the upscale offices that surround the four-faced Rolex clock tower at the center of the square.

A glut in the global oil market has not evaporated with other countries stepping up output while U.S. shale producers have cut back due the sharp drop prices since last year, the IEA said Wednesday.

In its latest monthly report the International Energy Agency said that global oil supply remained flat at 95.7 million barrels per day (mbd) in April. 

The German economy, Europe's biggest, grew by 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2015, slightly slower than expected, data published by the federal statistics office Destatis showed on Wednesday.

Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.3 percent in price, calendar and seasonally adjusted terms in the period from January to March compared with the preceding three months, Destatis said in a statement. 

The euro rose Wednesday on cautious hopes for the eurozone economy, even as Greece admitted that it raided an emergency account to pay off an IMF loan, aggravating concerns about Athens' finances.

In Tokyo, the European single currency strengthened to $1.1250 and 134.96 yen from $1.1213 and 134.44 yen in New York.

With China's main stock market more than doubling in the past year, authorities are looking to cash in by accelerating flotations, but the state-controlled listing system is riddled with institutional shortcomings, analysts say.

In a legacy of China's decades of Marxist ideology, when the Communist Party launched a stock market 25 years ago -- perhaps the ultimate capitalist tool -- it kept strict control over key decisions, including initial public offerings (IPOs).

Global oil prices rebounded sharply Tuesday on the falling greenback, which makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for June delivery jumped $1.09 to $60.34 a barrel.

Kuwait has requested arbitration in a dispute with Saudi Arabia over shared oil production from the neutral zone between the Gulf neighbors which has completely halted, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida said that talks between the two governments on output from the 5,000 square kilometer (1,930 square mile) zone that they exploit jointly under a half-century-old treaty had reached deadlock.

Britain's finance minister George Osborne on Tuesday warned his EU partners not to underestimate his government's determination to seek reform of the 28-nation bloc ahead of a planned referendum on British membership.

"We come here with a very clear mandate to improve Britain's relationship with the rest of the EU and to reform the EU so that it creates jobs and increases living standards for all its citizens," Osborne told reporters while arriving for a meeting of EU finance ministers.

Greece narrowly averted a default Tuesday that could have seen it crashing out of the euro, but warned it faced another cash crunch within two weeks without a bailout deal with its EU financiers.

Athens's radical new government managed to scrape enough cash together Monday to place the order for the repayment of 750 million euros ($840 million) of IMF loans, the finance ministry said, pledging to honor both its international and domestic debt obligations.