LinkedIn IPO lifts Wall Street

Stocks on Wall Street made modest gains as investor optimism over initial public offerings helped push major indexes higher.

Professional networking site LinkedIn's stock gained 131% to be on track to be 2011's best-performing IPO,

At the close (8am NZtime), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 45.14 points, or 0.4%, to 12,605.32, led by American Express and Boeing, each of which gained 1.5%.

The S&P 500 index was up 0.3% to 1343.60, as industrials and telecommunications stocks advanced. The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.3% to 2823.31.

Other markets: Europe rises, Asia mixed
European stock markets ended higher as Air France-KLM and Investec posted solid results.

Air France-KLM rose 1.9% as a boost in traffic helped offset rising fuel costs.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.7% to close at 280. London's FTSE 100 index rose 0.5% to close at 5955.99, with Investec jumping 5.4% after a 22% profit jump.

Oil company Total rose 1.2% in Paris, helping push the French CAC 40 index up 1.3% to 4027.74. In Germany, the DAX 30 index advanced 0.7% to close at 7,358.23.

Asian shares ended mixed, with Japanese stocks falling on data that showed a sharp economic contraction in the January-March period. Resources plays led Australian shares higher..

The Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.4% to 9620.82, Korea's Kospi skidded 1.9% to 2095.51 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.3% to 4756.40.

China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.5% to 2859.57, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.7% to 23,163.38 and India's Sensex advanced 0.3% to 18,141.4.

Commodities: Oil, gold drop
Oil futures sank below $US99 a barrel after the Conference Board index of US leading economic indicators unexpectedly fell in April, the first decline since June 2010.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery was $US1.58, or 1.6%, lower at $98.52 a barrel in New York. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange was down 57USc, or 0.5%, to $111.72 a barrel.

Gold futures fell, with the most actively traded contract, for June delivery, down $US4.40, or 0.3%, at $US1491.40 an ounce.

Currencies: US dollar rises against yen
The US dollar rose against the yen after US weekly claims for unemployment benefits fell last week.

The dollar rose above ¥82 for the first time since April 28 and was at ¥81.73, compared with ¥81.67 late on Wednesday.

The euro rose to $US1.4313 from $US1.4241. The dollar also gained against the Swiss franc, hitting an intraday high of 0.8867 franc before pulling back to 0.8822 franc, against 0.8818 franc on Wednesday.