Oil, stocks climb; group sees floor for oil market

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crude prices rose on Friday, boosting world stock markets, after an industry group said the oil market may have found a floor.

The euro fell back after rallying Thursday, when the European Central Bank signalled it was unlikely to cut its negative interest rates further in the wake of a huge new stimulus plan.

Brent crude oil was on track for its third weekly gain after a report by the International Energy Agency, which said production declines were picking up in the United States and other non-OPEC producers, and an increase in supply from Iran was less dramatic than expected.

 

Brent crude futures were up 1.2 percent at $40.52 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures were up 2.3 percent at $38.70 a barrel.

U.S. stocks were up more than 1 percent in morning trading, helped by gains in energy shares, while MSCI's all-country world stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> jumped 1.4 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 171.68 points, or 1.01 percent, to 17,166.81, the S&P 500 <.SPX> had gained 22.13 points, or 1.11 percent, to 2,011.7 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> had added 58.78 points, or 1.26 percent, to 4,720.93.

In Europe, shares rebounded after falling sharply Thursday on the ECB news. The pan-regional FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> was up 2.4 percent.

After a surge to more than $1.12 on Thursday, the euro eased 0.2 percent to $1.1157 >.

"A few months ago, if you had expected such measures were going to be deployed, you would have thought the euro would fall 3 percent," said Gian Marco Salcioli, head of FX sales at Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo Banca IMI in Milan.

ECB President Mario Draghi's suggestion that there would be no further interest rates cuts overshadowed the European Central Bank's bold easing package, prompting criticism that he had once again botched his communication.

U.S. Treasury yields rose in choppy trading as investors bet the U.S. economy was healthy enough for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year.

The benchmark 10-year note > yield rose to 1.970 percent, its highest in six weeks. It was last down 10/32 in price to yield 1.963 percent, up from 1.929 on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London; Editing by Bernadette Baum)