By Nigel Stephenson
LONDON (Reuters) - Shares rose in Europe and the dollar made slight gains on Thursday, with investors focusing on a news conference by the head of the European Central Bank after it left interest rates unchanged.
ECB President Mario Draghi was scheduled to hold a news conference at 1230 GMT and was expected by some to signal readiness to take further steps to stimulate the euro zone economy.
Wall Street was likely to follow Europe higher, stock index futures indicated.
Worries that global economic growth is slowing, particularly in China, have depressed stock and commodity markets across the world in recent months and prompted a series of downgrades to economic forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and others.
This, in turn, has raised expectations that some central banks, including those of China and Japan, will take further measures to stimulate their economies.
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The ECB, as widely expected, took no new steps on Thursday, but some in markets were looking for Draghi to signal that it could extend its 1 trillion euro bond-buying quantitative easing scheme if necessary.
"Watch out for hints of broader QE and whether further interest rate cuts may have been discussed," said Commerzbank rates strategist Rainer Guntermann. "Yet, the bar for a dovish surprise is high."
BOOST FROM ROCHE
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 stocks index rose 0.1 percent, slightly paring gains after the ECB decision. An increased full-year sales outlook from Swiss drugmaker Roche helped support the index. The company's shares were up 1.3 percent.
Earlier, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.2 percent. Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.6 percent.
However, China bucked the trend, rebounding from Wednesday's roughly 3 percent dive. The Shanghai Composite index and the CSI300 both closed up 1.5 percent.
The dollar, which has been losing ground in the past month as expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year have waned, edged up against a basket of currencies.
The euro fell 0.2 percent after the ECB decision, while the dollar eased 0.1 percent to 119.78 yen.
Euro zone government bonds reflected the wait-and-see mood before the ECB decision. Benchmark German 10-year Bund yields rose 1 basis point to 0.58 percent
There was some respite for oil prices, which hit a three-week low on Wednesday after a larger-than-expected rise in U.S. crude stocks.
Brent, the global benchmark, was last up 78 cents at $48.63 a barrel.
"We're in a consistent dip and I see it continuing as inventories tip up and down," said Jasper Lawler, markets analyst at CMC Markets.
Gold held near its lowest in more than a week, last trading at $1,168.21 an ounce, having touched $1,165.30 on Wednesday.
(Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo, Nichola Saminather in Singapore and Marius Zaharia and Simon Falush in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey)