European markets were also up.
Wall Street stocks rallied on Wednesday, reversing three days of losses, as hopes the European debt crisis may ease after a German court rejected lawsuits aimed at blocking the country from joining in to aid Greece and other nations.
But the court said the government must get approval from a parliamentary committee, which could further slow a response.
The Dow Jones Index rose 276 points, or 2.5%, to close at 11,415. The Nasdaq Composite rose 75 points, or 3%, to finish at 2549.
The FTSE 100 in London rose 162 points, or 3.1%, to close at 5319, building on an advance of 1.1% on Tuesday. Almost 6% was shed in the previous two sessions.
The DAX in Frankfurt rose more than 4% and the CAC40 in Paris rose 3.6%.
The Nikkei In Tokyo gained 146 points to close at 8,736 and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong added 203 points to close at 19,913.
The Australian 200 Index rose 108 points, or 2.7%, to close at 4183 on Wednesday. The NZX 50 rose 30 points, or 0.9%, to finish at 3301.
At 8.20am on Thursday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 83.02 US cents, 77.97 Australian cents, 51.98 pence, 64.18 yen and 0.5894 euro.
The Trade Weighted Index was at 71.65.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US119.34 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1810.31 per ounce.
