European stocks fell on Thursday on fears that a bull market in commodities could be close to a peak but the dollar and bond yields gained as rising price pressures looked set to keep U.S. interest rates heading higher, Reuters reported. Dealers were expecting a flat market open from Wall Street as a robust preliminary earnings from McDonald's and acquisition news were offset by caution before oil inventory data. Inflation concerns were supporting precious metals prices with platinum hitting its highest level in more than 25 years and gold holding just below this week's 18-year highs. European shares fell to five-week lows on Thursday as worries that the commodity price gains could be about to run out of steam thumped energy and mining stocks such as BP BP.L, Anglo American and Rio Tinto. "People have reasoned that the sheer extent of the metals price rises means, simplistically, that they have now gone up so high that they can't go up further to the same extent," said JP Morgan metals and mining global strategist Jon Bergtheil. The FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.9 percent and the DJ Euro STOXX 50 lost 0.76 percent. Earlier, Japan's Nikkei average ended down 14.5 points or 0. 11 percent at 13,449.24. The TOPIX index closed up 0.90 points or 0.06 percent at 1,407.79.
