LONDON (Reuters) - European shares traded sideways in early deals on Thursday despite new highs in Asia and on Wall Street, with financial shares being the biggest burden and Just Eat the top performer after its merger with Hungryhouse got provisional clearance.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (STOXX) index was up 0.01 percent in early deals with no clear direction across the continent.
France's CAC 40 (FCHI) and Spain's IBEX (IBEX) were down 0.1 percent while Frankfurt's DAX (GDAXI) and the FTSE 100 (FTSE) were very slightly up.
Just Eat (L:JE) posted the best performance of the index with a 6.4 percent rise to a new record high of 748.5p as British competition authorities gave a provisional go-ahead to its acquisition of Hungryhouse.
In Germany, Lufthansa (DE:LHAG) was on top of the local blue-chip index with a 2.7 percent rise after it said it would sign a deal later on Thursday to to buy parts of insolvent German carrier Air Berlin (DE:AB1).