Europe's Stoxx 600 Index closed the day with a 1 per cent climb. In afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.85 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 0.57 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.29 per cent.
Confirming a recent trend, today's data indicated a pickup in the world's largest economy.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 366,000 last week, the lowest level since May 2008, the Labor Department said. Economists had predicted a climb to 390,000, according to Reuters.
More good news came in the form of two regional Federal Reserve Bank business surveys indicating a better-than-expected pace of expansion in December.
"The data is in line with a modestly improving overall economy here in the United Sates," Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey told Reuters.
In Europe, gauges of manufacturing output in Germany and France contracted this month less than economists had estimated while services output unexpectedly rose in both countries, according to Bloomberg News.
In the US, however, data on industrial production reminded investors that there's still a need for caution. Output fell unexpectedly by 0.2 per cent last month, compared with forecasts for a 0.2 per cent increase.
While a positive sign, another successful Spanish debt auction doesn't resolve the major threat Europe's fiscal crisis poses to the global economy. There's still plenty of concern.
Today, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said that the "crisis is not only unfolding, but escalating" and cannot be resolved by one group of countries.
If the international community doesn't work together, "the risk from an economic point of view is that of retraction, rising protectionism, isolation," Lagarde said at an event in Washington. "This is exactly the description of what happened in the '30s and what followed is not something we are looking forward to."
