* European shares hold slight gains after ECB meeting
* Chinese stocks recover some of Wednesday's slide
* Dollar edges higher; Brent crude tops $48
* Wall Street set to open higher
By Nigel Stephenson
LONDON, Oct 22 (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 ESc1 .
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.
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. ID:nL8N12L31N
"Watch out for hints of broader QE and whether further
interest rate cuts may have been discussed," said Commerzbank (DE:CBKG)
rates strategist Rainer Guntermann. "Yet, the bar for a dovish
surprise is high."
BOOST FROM ROCHE
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 stocks index .FTEU3 rose
0.1 percent, slightly paring gains after the ECB decision. An
increased full-year sales outlook from Swiss drugmaker Roche
ROG.VX helped support the index. The company's shares were up
1.3 percent. ID:nL8N12M0FE
Earlier, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares
outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 0.2 percent. Japan's
Nikkei .N225 closed down 0.6 percent.
However, China bucked the trend, rebounding from Wednesday's
roughly 3 percent dive. The Shanghai Composite index .SSEC and
the CSI300 .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 .DXY .
The euro EUR= fell 0.2 percent after the ECB decision,
while the dollar eased 0.1 percent to 119.78 yen JPY= .
Euro zone government bonds reflected the wait-and-see mood
before the ECB decision. Benchmark German 10-year Bund yields
DE10YT=TWEB 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 LCOc1 , 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 XAU= held near its lowest in more than a week, last
trading at $1,168.21 an ounce, having touched $1,165.30 on
Wednesday.