China data boosts world stocks and copper; oil jumps

NEW YORK - 16 October 2017: World stocks rose on Monday and copper touched a three-year high as upbeat Chinese data drove optimism about the world's second biggest economy, while oil prices jumped as an escalation in fighting between the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces threatened supply.

Asian shares rallied to a decade high after figures showed China's producer prices beat market expectations to rise 6.9 percent in September from a year earlier.

Wall Street indexes rose as U.S. banking stocks recovered after slipping last week and technology stocks rallied, driven by a 1.6 percent increase in Apple Inc.

Wall Street's rise comes ahead of a barrage of quarterly earnings reports this week.

"The market is going higher despite all the news flow of geopolitical events," said Jeff Zipper, managing director at U.S. Bank Private Client Reserve in Palm Beach, Florida. "There is optimism on earnings, economic indicators and hopes of budget resolution."

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed up 0.57 percent at its highest level since late 2007.

Japan's Nikkei climbed 0.47 percent to a level not seen since November 1996. Australian shares extended their winning streak to a fourth straight session, rising 0.6 percent, while South Korea's stock index set a record.

The upbeat data from China came before the Communist Party Congress on Wednesday and third-quarter economic data on Thursday.

"What has helped risk appetite this morning is that the Chinese inflation data suggests the world's second biggest economy is doing much better than people expected this time a year ago for 2017," said Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 60.57 points, or 0.26 percent, to 22,932.29, the S&P 500 gained 2.75 points, or 0.11 percent, to 2,555.92, and the Nasdaq Composite added 10.32 points, or 0.16 percent, to 6,616.13.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index closed up 0.04 percent, and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.08 percent. Emerging market stocks rose 0.51 percent.

Copper jumped 3.7 percent to $7,134 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, after touching the July 2014 high of $7,177 a tonne, driven by economic data from China, the world's top copper consumer.

Prices are up about 29 percent year to date, on track for the biggest annual gain since 2010.

Prices of iron ore and coke, key ingredients in steel-making, jumped with Dalian iron ore futures.

Oil prices rose as Iraqi forces entered the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, taking territory from Kurdish fighters and briefly cutting some output from OPEC's second-biggest producer.

U.S. crude oil futures settled at $51.87 per barrel, up 42 cents or 0.82 percent, while Brent settled at $57.82, up 1.2 percent on the day.

The euro weakened after the Austrian election put conservative Sebastian Kurz on track to become the next leader. He is seen as likely to seek a coalition with the resurgent far right because his party is far short of a majority.

The euro slumped 0.2 percent to $1.1798, while the dollar index rose 0.16 percent as investors repositioned following disappointing inflation data on Friday that sent the greenback lower.

Spanish stocks lagged Europe after Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont failed to clarify whether he had declared independence from Spain last week, possibly paving the way for the central government to take control of the wealthy region.

Spain's country index IBEX fell 0.75 percent.