LONDON (ShareCast) - Wall Street's main equity indices bounced back on Thursday afternoon, tracking overnight gains in Chinese stocks and a bounce in the commodities space.
As of 15:54 BST the Dow Jones Industrial was higher by 161.13 points to 17,676.55 and the S&P by another 18.26 to 2,064.94, with all ten of its sector sub-indices in the black.

That came despite the International Monetary Fund's decision to trim its forecast for 2015 gross domestic product growth Stateside to 2.5% from the 3.1% it saw in April.

At the sector level the biggest advances on the NYSE were to be seen in: Aluminium (3.18%), Non-ferrous metals (3.09%) and coal (2.87%).

European stocks push higher as basic resources advance

Shares in Europe were higher, with basic resources pacing the advance as investors continued to keep a close eye on Greece after Athens made a formal request on Wednesday for a new three-year bailout from the European Stability Mechanism.

Greece must present new proposals to its Eurozone creditors by the end of Thursday and will need to reach an agreement with them by Sunday. The main sticking points are expected to relate to pension cuts and tax increases.

Meanwhile, a rally in Chinese markets and firmer metals prices, with the exception of gold, also helped to underpin the tone in Europe, boosting basic-resource stocks, which are highly dependent on demand from China.

The dollar was firmer against the euro and the yen, and a touch weaker against the pound, while gold futures for August delivery were down 0.13% at $1,162.00 .

Oil pushed higher, with West Texas Intermediate up 2.09% at $52.71 a barrel and Brent crude up 2.73% at $58.365 a barrel.

Weekly unemployment claims rise past forecasts

Initial US unemployment claims rose by 15,000 to reach 297,000 in the week ended on 4 July (Barclays: 275,000), according to the US Department of Labor.

No special factors were cited by the government to explain the move higher in the initial claims data. However, the seasonally typical retooling of car plants was cited by some market commentary as a possible explanation behind last week's rise in claims.

Alcoa and Pepsi rise after earnings

On the corporate front, shares in Blackberry may be active on Thursday following reports that the mobile phone maker and enterprise software developer is planning to launch Android-based handsets that will also contain some of the prominent features of the Blackberry OS such as BSM.

Elsewhere, Alibaba was up 2.8% in pre-market trade amid reports the company is preparing to invest $100m in Mei.com.

Alcoa shares were higher by 3% following steep declines in the previous session ahead of the company's earnings. They came in below market expectations but the company sounded an upbeat note on prospects for the rest of the year.

PepsiCo edged up 0.22% after the company raised its earnings forecasts for the year, while Walgreens Boots Alliance was also on the front foot after its third-quarter earnings per share beat expectations.

Coty was one of the most heavily traded issues on the NYSE after the firm entered into a $12.5bn deal for to acquire 43 of Proctor & Gamble's hair and beauty brands.

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE