After opening negative gap and plunging deeper into the red Thursday morning, the Canadian market recovered gradually and moved into positive territory around mid afternoon to eventually end the day's session marginally up, thanks to strong buying in materials stocks.

The Switzerland market ended notably lower on Thursday, in line with markets across Europe, with investors largely tracking earnings updates, and making cautious moves amid uncertainty about the outlook for Fed interest rates.

European stocks closed lower on Thursday with investors digesting a slew of earnings updates and economic data from Europe and the U.S. Data showing a spike in U.S. personal consumption expenditures price index raised concerns the Fed might hold interest rates higher for a longer period.

The U.S. dollar appreciated against its major counterparts in the New York session on Thursday, as GDP data showed a hot inflation reading for the first quarter and initial jobless claims fell to a two-month low last week, dashing hopes of a rate cut before September.

Pending home sales in the U.S. surged by much more than expected in the month of March, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Thursday. NAR said its pending home sales index spiked by 3.4 percent to 78.2 in March after jumping by 1.6 percent to 75.6 in February. Economists had expected pending home sales to rise by just 0.3 percent.

Expert market comment made by senior analyst Alex Kuptsikevich of the FxPro Analyst Team: US economy: slower growth with stronger inflation

Expert market comment made by senior analyst Alex Kuptsikevich of the FxPro Analyst Team: The Nasdaq100 might retreat to 15800

Yen falls to new 34-year low ahead of BoJ decision - Dollar traders await GDP and PCE data - Wall Street mixed, gold stays on the back foot

Euro-dollar stable; stochastic positive. Dollar up 0.33% vs. yen; Williams signals overbought. Gold-dollar drops 0.3%; stochastic RSI oversold. Tesla falls 0.5%; oscillator positive. Yen weakens, S&P 500 rises, US Treasury auction affects yields. Australian inflation disappoints. Upcoming: US GDP, French business climate, Japan CPI, UK consumer confidence.

The USD/JPY pair reached an all-time high on Thursday, touching the 155.50 level. This development comes as the Bank of Japan (BoJ) starts its two-day monetary policy meeting with widespread expectations that the interest rate will remain unchanged at zero.