Global stocks surged the most since May on Wednesday following reports that manufacturing grew faster than anticipated in China and in the US. The MSCI World Index rallied 2.9% on and the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 3% to 1,080.29.
The numbers helped Wall Street to its best day in eight weeks as indexes of industrial, energy and financial companies rose at least 3.6 for the top gains among 10 groups in the S%P 500.
Asian stocks hit a two-week high on Thursday with the Nikkei briefly rising more than 2%. Gains in Asian stocks were boosted by the strong manufacturing data and tech shares though still appear to be capped by wariness about the state of the global economy.
Australian stocks climbed 0.8% to a three-week high, with miners such as Rio Tinto gaining after copper prices rose to a four-month high.
