* Global equities mixed, awaiting U.S. payrolls data
* U.S. shares make late session push up, cut losses
* New Japanese Finance Minister wants weaker yen
* U.S. dollar gains on weak euro-zone data
* China surprises with interest-rate increase
By Daniel Bases
NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks closed mostly
higher after a late session push on Thursday while the U.S.
dollar benefited from weak euro-zone data and comments from
Japan's new finance minister that he wants a weaker yen.
The small move up in U.S. share prices pushed the Dow
Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 stock
indexes to fresh 15-month highs. The Nasdaq Composite Index
just missed the plus column.
Both stocks and the U.S. dollar were aided by rising
expectations, as revealed in a new Reuters poll, that the U.S.
job market may have improved enough to show there were no job
losses in December, thereby ending two years of uninterrupted
cuts.
"There're some positive expectations for tomorrow's
non-farm (payrolls) number and that might be helping give the
dollar a bit of a bid," said Sacha Tihanyi, currency
strategist at Scotia Capital in Toronto.
"We're still in that mode where good news on employment is
good news for the U.S. dollar in the short term," he said.
The greenback drew support from better-than-expected new
weekly U.S. jobless claims, which edged up a slim 1,000 last
week to 434,000, but were well shy of Wall Street estimates.
(For more, click http://link.reuters.com/dun32h)
The U.S. Labor Department reports the December jobs data
at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Friday. (For more on the poll,
click on [])
Speaking to university students in Shanghai, St. Louis Fed
President James Bullard said the U.S. labor market is
improving and the economy is close to the point where
unemployment will start to fall. For details, see
[]
Among the main drivers for the U.S. equity rebound were
positive broker comments on General Electric <GE.N> and Bank
of America <BAC.N>. Shares of GE rose 5.18 percent to $16.25
and Bank of America gained 3.29 percent to $16.93.
A late holiday shopping surge that helped U.S. retailers
beat analysts' sales estimates for December, Thomson Reuters
data showed. Industry experts, however, think the momentum is fading early in 2010. []
(http://link.reuters.com/byr32h)
U.S. stock indexes closed mixed. The Dow industrials
<> rose 33.18 points, or 0.31 percent, to 10,606.86 and
S&P 500 <.SPX> advanced 4.55 points, or 0.40 percent, to
1,141.69. However, the Nasdaq Composite Index <> lost
1.04 points, or 0.05 percent, to end at 2,300.05.
The Nasdaq felt the impact of weak technology stocks.
"There are certainly questions being asked: Is this going
to be indicative of a further sell-off or are we just pausing
before resuming the uptrend?" said Michael James, senior
trader at regional investment bank Wedbush Morgan in Los
Angeles.
Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 <> closed down 0.08
percent. Japan's Nikkei average <> fell 0.46 percent.
TALKING DOWN YEN
Remarks from Japan's new finance minister, Naoto Kan, that
he would like to see the yen weaken in order to support its
export-oriented economy fueled the dollar's rise to four month
highs against Japan's currency.
The euro suffered after reports showed weak German
manufacturing orders and euro zone retail sales data.
The dollar was up against a basket of major
trading-partner currencies, with the U.S. Dollar Index <.DXY>
up 0.74 percent.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar <JPY=> was up 1.03
percent at 93.29.
The euro <EUR=> was down 0.68 percent at $1.4314.
CHINA'S MOVE
Commodity prices were undermined by the dollar's gains,
although for oil the picture was mixed as cold weather in the
United States and Europe gave some support.
But a surprise interest rate increase by China's central
bank on short-term debt raised concerns the government may be
trying to slow down lending, curb growth and fight inflation.
This was the first increase for its three-month bills
since August, intensifying its grip on liquidity a day after
it promised to keep credit growth in check.
"Crude oil edged lower on speculation that China's move to
slow bank lending may reduce commodity demand in the country,"
Addison Armstrong, analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford,
Connecticut, said in a note.
U.S. light sweet crude oil <CLc1> fell 52 cents, or 0.63
percent, to $82.66 per barrel, and spot gold prices <XAU=>
fell $7.25, or 0.64 percent, to $1,131.20.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury <US10YT=RR> was
unchanged with the yield at 3.8294 percent.
Euro-zone government bonds ended higher. The interest
rate-sensitive two-year Schatz yield <EU2YT=RR> was down 1.7
basis points at 1.296 percent, while the 10-year Bund yield
<EU10YT=RR> was down 2.3 basis points at 3.37 percent. Bond
prices move inversely with yields.
(Additional reporting by Reuters correspondents worldwide;
Editing by Jan Paschal )
