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* FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.1 pct, 1 pct off highest in almost 6years
* LVMH Q1 sales give luxury goods sector a boost
* M&S shares rise after trading update, then fall back
By Tricia Wright
LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) - European shares inched higheron Thursday after minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve's latestpolicy meeting suggested it would be less inclined thananticipated to raise interest rates.
Luxury goods makers surged as Louis Vuitton owner LVMH posted better-than-expected quarterly sales in a keydivision, easing concerns over the potential impact of turmoilin emerging markets.
"(LVMH's) trading statement highlights further accelerationin Fashion & Leather/Vuitton, a very positive outcome in acontext of weak trends as seen or expected at soft luxury peers- Prada, Gucci brand, Hugo Boss, Tod's. This should besufficient to support the shares near-term," Citi analysts wrotein a note.
Shares in LVMH rose 4 percent, Gucci owner Kering was up 2.1 percent, Christian Dior advanced 2.7percent, while Richemont progressed by 1.8 percent.
The Fed minutes had fuelled a rally on Wall Street. Themarket pushed out expectations of a first Fed rate hike by aboutsix weeks, to July 2015, trading in interest-rate futuresshowed.
"This does continue to make me believe that equities are thebest play in town," said Lex van Dam, hedge fund manager atHampstead Capital.
The FTSEurofirst 300 was up 0.1 percent at 1,339.87points by 1138 GMT, in choppy trade which saw the index swingbetween 1,329-1,345. Traders pinned earlier weakness on a bigsale of Euro STOXX 50 futures.
The index gains built on a 0.4 percent rise on Wednesdaywhen concerns about valuations, which triggered a steep sell-offearlier in the week, started to ease. It is now around 1 percentoff near six-year highs hit on Friday.
The Euro STOXX 50 was flat at 3,183.33 points.It is just 1.7 percent below 5-1/2 year highs reached on Friday.
The STOXX 50 has found strong support over the last coupleof days just beneath 3,180, a previous level of resistance.
Alpari analyst Craig Erlam said this suggests that thepull-back seen earlier this week "was just a shallow correctionand the uptrend will resume", though added that Friday's high of3,239 will need to be broken in order to confirm this.
Above this, he targets 3,277 followed by 3,329.
Marks & Spencer bucked the firmer market trend,shedding 1.6 percent to reflect concerns about profit marginsand disappointment that Chief Executive Marc Bolland saidinvestors would have to wait until 2013-14 results are publishedon May 20 for any strategic update.
Shares in the British retailer rose as much as 3.3 percentin early trading after it said clothing sales at stores openover a year increased 0.6 percent in the 13 weeks to March 29.
Europe bourses in 2014: http://link.reuters.com/pap87v
Asset performance in 2014: http://link.reuters.com/gap87v
Today's European research round-up (Additional reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by HughLawson)
