China data boosts world stocks, copper; oil jumps

By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - World stocks rose on Monday, boosted by upbeat Chinese data, 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.

Major Wall Street indexes hit fresh records at the market open on gains in financial and technology stocks ahead of a barrage of earnings reports this week.

"The market still wants to be optimistic, it wants to continue to move higher from here," said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside at its highest level since late 2007. [.N] Japan's Nikkei rose 0.47 percent. Emerging market stocks rose 0.48 percent.

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

Upbeat data from China came before the Communist Party Congress on Wednesday and third-quarter economic data on Thursday. Figures showed China's producer prices beat market expectations to rise 6.9 percent in September from a year earlier.

"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 34.9 points, or 0.15 percent, to 22,906.62, the S&P 500 gained 2 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,555.17 and the Nasdaq Composite added 13.27 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,619.08.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 0.09 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.11 percent.

Copper hit three-year highs, last up 3.67 percent to $7,134.50 a tonne. Prices of iron ore [DCIOcv1] and coke [DCJcv1], key ingredients in steel-making, jumped with Dalian iron ore futures.[MET/L]

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

"The escalation in Northern Iraq is the main driver," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told the Reuters Global Oil Forum. "Oil supply from this region is at risk."

U.S. crude rose 0.82 percent to $51.87 per barrel and Brent was last at $57.86, up 1.21 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 down 0.16 percent to $1.1803, while the dollar index rose 0.09 percent naps investors repositioned following disappointing inflation data on Friday that had sent the greenback lower.

For Reuters Live Markets blog on European and UK stock markets see reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=https://bsmedia.business-standard.comemea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageId=livemarkets

(Reporting by Hilary Russ in New York; additional reporting by Ritvik Carvalho and Libby George in London; Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Karen Brettell in New York; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Nick Zieminski)