European stock markets rebounded slightly in early trading Friday, failing to overturn the previous day's plunge fuelled by heightened fears of a global recession because of the coronavirus pandemic. Shortly after the open, London was up 2.3 percent, Frankfurt won 1.0 percent, Paris gained 1.4 percent and Milan rallied 3.1 percent. On Thursday, the Paris CAC 40 dived more than 12 percent to record its biggest one-day loss since the index was created at the end of 1987. London's FTSE 100 and the Frankfurt DAX 30 indices meanwhile had their biggest one-day drops since the late 1980s, with losses of around 10-12 percent Thursday. Europe's leading stock markets have on average shed about one fifth of their values in just one week. bcp/jh