US stocks jumped and the Nasdaq hit an 18-month on Friday night after the February jobs numbers turned out to be a bit better than forecast.
The US economy lost 36,000 jobs in February, better than forecasts for 67,000 non-farm job losses.
It suggests the labour market might, finally, be stabilising after two years on the slide.
Then news also sparked strong trading in Europe before the close there and some markets finished at 2010 highs, or at levels not seen since Lehman Brothers fell off the cliff in September 2008.
Helping sentiment in the US was better news on consumer credit for January which moved into the black for the first time in a year.
The Federal Reserve said consumer credit rose $US4.96 billion in January, the first increase in a year and the largest for any month since mid-2008.
Analysts had been looking for a fall.
The reason was higher levels of car loans in many areas.
The Dow jumped 122.06 points, or 1.2%, to end at 10,566.20. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 15.73 points, or 1.4%, to end at 1138.70.
Nasdaq Index rose 34.04 points, or 1.5%, to 2326.35.
The Dow and the S&P 500 closed at their highest levels for six weeks.
The S&P 500 is now off only 1% from a 15-month closing high set on January 19, having clawed back from a drop of more than 8% up to February 8.
All three indexes are now positive for the year.
For the week, the Dow rose 2.3%; the Nasdaq added 3.9% and the S&P 500 climbed 3.1%.
Here in Australia we are looking to a strong start today after the gains on offshore markets and a slightly more positive tone at the end here Friday.
At the close, the ASX200 index had risen 16.7 points, or 0.4%, to 4763.2 points, while the All Ords advanced 15.8 points, or 0.3%, to 4773.4 points.
For the week, the ASX 200 added 2.7%, extending the weekly gains to four consecutive weeks.
Friday night also saw some encouraging news for the world economy with the OECD saying the world’s leading industrialised nations recorded continued economic growth in January.
It said that data in emerging market nations of Brazil and India also pointed to recovery and China and Russia were likely to continue expanding.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said its composite leading indicators index for its 30 member economies rose 0.8 points in January from December and was up 11.3 points from January 2009.
In the US, the index gained 0.9 points from December and 11 points from January 2009.
The January index was up 0.6 points in the eurozone from December and 12.5 points on the year.
In Europe markets rose in the wake of the economic news from the US.
It was the biggest weekly gain since last July as the Stoxx Europe 600 Index jumped 4.6% and moved into positive territory, erasing its loss for the year.
London had its highest finish in 18 months as fears about Greece faded.
The FTSE 100 index finished up 1.31% to 5,599.76 points, returning to levels last seen in September 2008 just before the collapse of Lehmans Brothers sparked a global financial and economic crisis.
(That’s despite those fears about the upcoming election ending inconclusively, worries about debt and the still weak level of activity in the UK economy.)
In Paris, the CAC 40 jumped 2.1% to 3910.42 points and in Frankfurt; the DAX gained 1.4% to 5877.36 points.
Indexes rose in all 18 western European markets, except Iceland. Germany’s DAX advanced 5% over the week, France’s CAC 40 5.4% and the Footsie jumped 4.6%.
Elsewhere in Europe, Amsterdam rose 1.87% on Friday, Brussels 1.1%, Madrid, 2.6% and Milan, 2%.
In Asia, shares rose strongly.
Tokyo’s Nikkei-225 index jumped 2.2%, buoyed by a weaker yen and hopes that the Japanese central bank will ease monetary policy further.
The Nikkei rose 2.4%, over the week, thanks to the big rise Friday to give it its best weekly performance for the year so far.
Hong Kong added 1%, and Shanghai 0.6% as investors assessed the comments non Friday on the economy by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
