(New throughout, updates prices and market activity, adds
details of Draghi press conference, adds comments; changes
byline, dateline, previous LONDON)
* Dollar edges higher; Brent crude tops $48
* European shares add to gains after ECB meeting
* Wall Street gains on earnings
By David Gaffen
NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Stocks rose in the United
States and Europe and the dollar rallied against the euro after
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said further rate
cuts were considered to stimulate the euro zone economy.
Worries that global economic growth is slowing, particularly
in China, have depressed stock and commodity markets across the
world in recent months and prompted a series of downgrades to
economic forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and
others.
The ECB, as widely expected, took no new steps on Thursday,
but Draghi signaled that it could extend its 1 trillion euro
bond-buying quantitative easing scheme if necessary to combat
weak inflation. ID:nL8N12L31N
"We are ready to act if needed ... and we are open to the
full menu of monetary policy," Draghi said at his press
conference.
Wall Street was higher, gaining ground after the ECB news
and earnings reports that included better-than-expected figures
from McDonald's Corp (N:MCD) MCD.N to weak figures from Caterpillar (N:CAT)
and Raytheon.
A global index of equities .MIWD00000PUS rose 0.7 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 215.29 points,
or 1.25 percent, to 17,383.9, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 24.51
points, or 1.21 percent, to 2,043.45 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 68.13 points, or 1.41 percent, to 4,908.24.
The dollar edged up against a basket of currencies .DXY .
The U.S. unit has been losing ground in the past month as
expectations waned for an interest rate hike this year by the
Federal Reserve.
The euro EUR= fell 1.5 percent after the ECB decision,
moving sharply lower after Draghi's comments, trading at
$1.1169, a three-week low. It also fell to a one-month low
against sterling. Against the yen, the dollar was up 0.4 percent
to 119.78 yen JPY= .
"Draghi delivered all kinds of dovish signals which weighed
on the euro," said Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at
BNP Paribas (PA:BNPP) in New York. "He was as dovish as can be without
changing policy."
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 stocks index .FTEU3 rose
2 percent. An increased full-year sales outlook from Swiss
drugmaker Roche ROG.VX helped support the index. The company's
shares were up 2.8 percent. ID:nL8N12M0FE
Earlier, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares
outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 0.2 percent. Japan's
Nikkei .N225 closed down 0.6 percent.
Euro zone government bonds rallied, with benchmark German
10-year Bund prices DE10YT=TWEB rising 19/32 to drop the yield
to 0.50 percent, down 0.06 percentage point.
U.S. Treasury yields were little changed, with the 10-year
note yield edging up to 2.039 percent. One-month bill yields
rose by 0.03 percentage point to 0.05 percent after the U.S.
Treasury Department said it would postpone a coming two-year
note auction due to uncertainty about whether Congress would
raise the U.S. borrowing limit in a timely fashion.
Oil prices rose slightly after hitting a three-week low on
Wednesday after a larger-than-expected rise in U.S. crude
stocks. Brent LCOc1 , the global benchmark, was last up 36
cents at $48.20 a barrel. U.S. crude rose 29 cents to $45.49 a
barrel.
Gold XAU= held near its lowest in more than a week, last
trading at $1,164 an ounce.