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Updates with mid-morning trading in Europe

By Amanda Cooper and Rae Wee

LONDON/SINGAPORE, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Global stocks eased

on Thursday, halting a rally sparked by U.S. President Donald

Trump's mammoth spending plans for artificial intelligence

infrastructure as some of that excitement fizzled out, though

Chinese shares fared better on Beijing's support.

In Europe, the STOXX 600, which hit a record high

on Wednesday, was down 0.1%, under pressure from a drop in

technology shares, which had soared the previous day

after Trump announced a $500 billion private-sector AI

infrastructure investment plan.

The joint venture, which involves Oracle, OpenAI

and SoftBank initially turbo-charged a rally in global

stock markets, which drew further support from upbeat earnings.

Without any more detail on Trump's plans for tariffs, the

momentum faded and the dollar hovered around two-week lows,

while stocks on Wall Street hit a record high the previous day

.

"Clearly, the path of least resistance continues to lead to

the upside in the equity space, with participants ably shrugging

off tariff-related uncertainties for now," said Michael Brown,

senior research strategist at Pepperstone.

"That said, next week brings a chunky slate of event risk,

including the first FOMC decision of the year, as well as

earnings from megacaps...It wouldn't be too surprising to see

some equity longs trimmed into that bonanza."

U.S. stock index futures were down 0.2-0.5%.

On Asian markets overnight, Chinese stocks rallied by more

than 1% at one point in the session, after the government

announced plans to channel hundreds of billions of yuan of

investment from state-owned insurers into shares, just after

Trump said he was proposing to slap a 10% punitive duty on

Chinese imports.

The CSI300 blue-chip index gave up some of those

gains to end the day up 0.18%.

"The persistent underperformance of China equities is a

barometer of the country's fundamental economic difficulties,

along with falling bond yields," said Alvin Tan, head of Asia FX

strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

"They point to the domestic difficulties. And U.S. tariffs

will worsen the problem especially with China growing more

reliant on net exports to power growth."

Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.8%. Shares in

SoftBank jumped 5%, with the company having come under

the spotlight due to the Stargate AI joint venture.

The Information reported on Wednesday that OpenAI and

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank will each commit $19 billion to

fund the project.

TARIFF THREATS

Action in the currency markets was largely subdued on

Thursday after a volatile few sessions since Trump's return to

the White House, owing to his plans around tariffs.

Adding to his threats on Chinese imports, Trump also said

Mexico and Canada could face levies of around 25% by Feb. 1.

Similarly, he promised duties on European imports, without

elaborating further.

But in the absence of any further details, the dollar

struggled to push higher.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the currency

against six others, languished near a two-week low of 108.26.

The euro was little changed at $1.0408, while

sterling last traded down 0.2% at $1.2306.

China's yuan weakened by 0.14% to 7.2931 in the

offshore market.

"The threat of tariffs continues to hang over markets, but

the rapidly declining half life of headlines shows you the

market is already numb to the shenanigans," said Brent Donnelly,

president at Spectra Markets.

Ahead of the Bank of Japan's policy decision on Friday, the

dollar rose to a one-week high against the yen at

156.76. Markets have already fully priced in a 25-basis-point

rate hike at the conclusion of the meeting.

Norges Bank held interest rates on Thursday but signaled it

plans to cut rates at its next meeting in March.

The crown, the weakest performing G10 currency

against the dollar in the last year, with a loss of 7.5%, was

0.1% down on the day at 11.29 to the dollar.

In commodities, oil prices edged into positive territory,

but remained below $80 a barrel, under pressure from concern

over how Trump's proposed tariffs could affect global economic

growth and demand for energy.

Brent crude futures were last up 0.15% on the day at

$79.11 a barrel, having fallen earlier by as much as 0.5%, while

copper prices fell 0.6% to $9,173 a metric ton.

(Additional reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Koh Gui Qing

in New York; Editing by Jamie Freed and Kirsten Donovan)