* European stocks at 3-week closing high; Wall St rises
* Euro gains versus dollar on rate outlook
* Yen hits 10-month low against euro
* Oil and copper close lower
(Updates prices, lower close for oil and copper)
By Barani Krishnan
NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - World stocks rose on
Wednesday as strong hiring by U.S. private employers boosted
both U.S. and European markets, while the euro gained against
the dollar on remarks by a European policy maker that indicated
higher eurozone interest rates.
A report by ADP that U.S. private sector businesses added
201,000 jobs in March buoyed expectations over the pace of
economic recovery in the United States, the world's largest
economy.
MSCI's all-country world stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> gained
more than 1.0 percent while European shares hit a three-week
closing high and U.S. shares rose.
In currency markets, the euro hit a 10-week high against
the yen. It also rose against the dollar, erasing early losses,
after European Central Bank policymaker Lorenzo Bini Smaghi
said the ECB intends to raise rates gradually, suggesting next
week's expected hike may be the first of several. For more,
see: []
The euro rose to the day's highs at $1.4148 <EUR=EBS> on
electronic trading platform EBS. It was last at $1.4129, up 0.1
percent, after falling as low as $1.4049 earlier.
The Australian dollar rallied too, surging to levels last
seen in the early 1980s.
The Japanese yen slipped to a 10-month low versus the euro
and a near three-month low against the dollar as recent hawkish
comments from euro zone and U.S. officials on interest rates
contrasted with Japan's loose monetary policy stance.
The yen fell against the euro to 117.28 yen, and against
the U.S. dollar it fell to 83.19 yen <JPY=>.
Rising risk appetite encouraged investors to seek
higher-yielding assets, with the Australian dollar <AUD=D4>,
climbing to a 29-year high over the U.S. dollar and a 10-month
high against the yen.
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Graphic on year-to-date gains across asset classes:
http://r.reuters.com/kyw48p
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ADP JOBS REPORT BOLSTERS WALL STREET
On Wall Street, shares rose as the ADP report did little to
shake up expectations for Friday's closely watched government
report on non-farm payrolls. []
Stocks also rose as investors positioned themselves for the
quarter's end, and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index attempted to
hold above a key technical level.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> was up 96.27
points, or 0.78 percent, at 12,375.28. The S&P 500 Index <.SPX>
added 11.27 points, or 0.85 percent, at 1,330.71. The Nasdaq
Composite Index <> was up 21.83 points, or 0.79 percent,
at 2,778.72.
Merger and acquisition activity also supported sentiment
after Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International
<VRX.TO><VRX.N> made an unsolicited bid to buy Cephalon Inc
<CEPH.O> for $5.7 billion. Cephalon shares soared 28.1 percent
to $75.25. U.S.-listed shares of Valeant were up 10.6 percent
at $49.10. []
"M&A activity has been very consistent over a broad array
of sectors with incredible premiums, and that's one of the
biggest catalysts for the market's rebound," said Alan Lancz,
president at Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc, an investment
advisory firm based in Toledo, Ohio.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <> index of top
shares closed 0.8 percent higher at 1,134.63, its highest
closing level since March 9.
"We have worked through the oversold conditions and
technically the markets are in a very strong and favorable
condition to respond to good newsflow. If we do get good
non-farm payrolls, the market will do very very well," said
Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin.
U.S. crude oil <CLc1> settled down 52 cents, or half a
percent, at $104.27 a barrel after see-sawing through the
session. Investors juggled the impact of data showing rising
crude oil inventories in the United States against uncertainty
of supply due to unrest in Libya and the Middle East.
Copper, an industrial metal seen as an economic bellwether,
fell almost 2 percent as investors worried about lack of demand
from top buyer China. Copper's benchmark U.S. futures contract,
May <HGK1>, settled down 7.25 cents at $4.2740.
"They are selling commodities, they are moving back into
industrials," said Paul Mendelsohn, a stock market analyst and
chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in
Charlotte, Vermont. "You've got a mini-market rotation coming
into your final couple of days of the quarter, and that is the
way the window-dressing takes place."
(Additional reporting by Nick Olivari and Chuck Mikolajczak in
New York; and Ikuko Kurahone, Natsuko Waki, Atul Prakash and
Joanne Frearson in London; Editing by Leslie Adler and Dan
Grebler)
