Stocks on Wall Street rallied again on Thursday, for the third consecutive day.
This time, a decline in weekly jobless claims and improvements in consumer spending and income added to the positive tone.
The Dow Jones Index was up 0.85% to 15,033 .
The Nasdaq Composite was up nearly 1% to 3406 and the S&P 500 was also up almost 1% to 1617.
Earlier in Europe, the FTSE 100 was up 1.26%, the DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.63% and the CAC-40 in Paris was up 0.97%.
The Australian 200 Index gained 1.6% to 4,811 and the NZX 50 gained 0.5% to 4,416.
Brent crude oil was trading at $102.97 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1213.71 per ounce.
At 6.45am on Friday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 77.80 US cents.
