GLOBAL MARKETS : JOBS -STOCKS- DATA

LONDON : World stocks rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday as encouraging coronavirus vaccine trials kept investor spirits up ahead of what was expected to be a record rebound in US jobs figures.

Economists polled by Reuters expect a bumper 3 million US jobs to have been added in June on top of the 2.5 million created in May, and some generally measuring data from Asia and Europe this week.

Despite the ongoing rise in global virus cases, Asian equity markets saw their biggest daily climb since more than two weeks overnight, aided by news that a vaccine being trialed by Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech had been well tolerated in early stage human tests.

Europe had a strong morning too, with banking, travel and carmaker stocks driving 1-2% gains for its main bourses, and the euro helped back-up towards a $1.13 by a third day of dollar falls. [Reuters]