US data shores up markets ahead of payrolls; Asia rallies as it played catch-up

US data shores up stocks ahead of payrolls

LONDON — Global stock markets pushed modestly higher Thursday after an upbeat U.S. housing survey as investors await payrolls figures that could well set the tone for the rest of the month.

Asian markets had earlier rallied as investors played catch-up with Wednesday’s rises elsewhere following a forecast-busting U.S. manufacturing survey.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 5.18 points, or 0.1 percent, at 5,371.59 while Germany’s DAX was up 10.20 points, or 0.2 percent, at 6,094.10. The CAC-40 in France was 10.91 points, or 0.3 percent, higher at 3,634.75.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 27.55 points, or 0.3 percent, at 10,297.02 less than an hour into the new session, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 6.21 points, or 0.6 percent, at 1,086.50.

Stocks in Europe and the U.S. were trading little changed until the National Association of Realtors revealed that the number of pending home sales in the U.S. rose by a seasonally-adjusted 5.2 percent from a month earlier.

The increase was unexpected and helped support sentiment further following a run of upbeat U.S. economic data.

How stocks end the week though will likely hinge on Friday’s nonfarm payrolls figures for August.

Jobless claims figures earlier also helped sustain hopes — the Labor Department said the number of people requesting unemployment benefits declined by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, in contrast to expectations for a modest increase.

“The data comes as the risk tone maintains a mildly more constructive tone into payrolls, but follow-through to such third tier data is likely to be decidedly limited,” said Alan Ruskin, an analyst at Deutsche Bank.

At the moment, market consensus is that Friday’s figures will show that around 90,000 U.S. jobs were lost in August, but that 30,000 were added if government census jobs that ended are taken out of the equation. Meanwhile, the U.S. unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 9.5 percent or even rise to 9.6 percent.

Despite the run of strong U.S. data, investors remain cautious heading into the payroll data.

“The risk is that tomorrow’s U.S. jobs report provides a ’slap in the face’ should the unemployment rate rise sharply,” said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

The monthly interest rate decision by the European Central Bank had little impact. As expected the ECB kept its key interest rate unchanged at 1 percent. However, the bank surprised by upgrading its eurozone economic growth forecasts for 2010 and 2011 — most economists had only been anticipating an upward revision for this year only.

The fairly steady tone in stock markets was replicated in the currency markets too.

The dollar was 0.1 percent lower at 84.35 yen, while the euro was up 0.1 percent at $1.2810.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average gained 1.5 percent to 9,062.84, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.2 percent to 20,868.92 and Seoul’s Kospi advanced 0.6 percent to 1,775.73.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.8 percent to 4,532.70 after gaining 2.1 percent the day before on the country’s strongest economic growth figures in three years.

Benchmark crude was down 52 cents at $73.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Associated Press writer Kelly Olsen in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.