European markets opened higher on Thursday, following rallies on Wall Street and in Asia overnight.

The FTSE 100 (^FTSE), the DAX (^GDAXI), and the CAC 40 (^FCHI) all opened half a percent higher on Thursday.

Stocks were buoyed by dovish comments from US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday, signalling the central bank would continue to support the economy through the recovery phase of the COVID-19 crisis.

"Risk appetite showed signs of returning to global markets over the last 24 hours as Fed Chair Powell stuck to his reassuring tone and continued to signal that the central bank would keep policy accommodative for some time to come," said Jim Reid and his team of strategists at Deutsche Bank.

"The remarks led to a sharp turnaround across a number of different asset classes, with the S&P 500 moving from an intraday low of -0.56% shortly after the open to end the session +1.14% higher, which was the strongest daily performance for the index in over 3 weeks."

There was little remaining momentum on Wall Street. S&P 500 futures (ES=F) were flat, Dow Jones futures (YM=F) were up 0.2%, and Nasdaq futures (NQ=F) were down 0.1%.

After a sell-off on Wednesday, Asian stocks rebounded overnight. Japan's Nikkei (^N225) rose 1.7%, the Hong Kong Hang Seng (^HSI) rose 1.4%, South Korea's KOSPI (^KS11) jumped by 3.5%, and the Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) rallied 0.6%.

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