* Wall Street up as investors chase winning stocks
* Euro gains versus dollar on rate outlook
* Yen hits 10-month low against euro
* Oil and copper close lower
(Updates prices)
By Barani Krishnan
NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Stocks on major world
markets rose on Wednesday as data showing strong hiring by U.S.
private employers provided a boost, while the euro gained
against the U.S. dollar on remarks by a European policymaker
indicating higher eurozone interest rates ahead.
U.S. stocks ended higher, with activity dominated by money
managers buying recent winners, including energy and
small-caps, as the quarter nears its end. But volume remained
thin and the S&P 500 index failed to hold above the key 1,330
level.
"A lot of what you're seeing for the entire week is
everybody wanting to be either in or out of whatever they want
to show their clients for quarter-end," said Neal Dietz,
managing director at Dietz & Lynch Capital in Newburyport,
Massachusetts.
A report by ADP that U.S. private sector businesses added
201,000 jobs in March buoyed expectations about the pace of
economic recovery in the United States, the world's largest
economy, and gave stocks on Wall Street an early boost.
MSCI's all-country world stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> gained
more than 1.0 percent while European shares hit a three-week
closing high.
EURO JUMPS
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 hit $1.4147 <EUR=EBS> and was last at $1.4128,
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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WALL STREET HELPED BY JOBS REPORT, MERGERS
The Dow Jones industrial average <> ended up 71.60
points, or 0.58 percent, at 12,350.61. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> was up 8.82 points, or 0.67 percent, at
1,328.26. The Nasdaq Composite Index <> added 19.90
points, or 0.72 percent, to 2,776.79.
The Russell 2000 index <> for small-caps closed at the
highest level since October 2007.
The ADP report on U.S. private sector jobs -- showing
201,000 new jobs -- came ahead of Friday's government report on
non-farm payrolls. While it indicated the economy is on the
mend, the job numbers themselves were not overly bullish.
[]
"At 200,000 or so, that number is not enough to excite the
market one way or the other -- if it indeed happens to be the
number for payrolls on Friday," said John Canally, an economist
for LPL Financial in Boston.
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 ended up 28.4
percent at $75.44. U.S.-listed shares of Valeant rose 12.8
percent to $50.08. []
"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 up 0.8 percent 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.
COMMODITIES DOWN
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 Dan Grebler)
