Wall Street claws back year's losses

Stocks on Wall Street finished higher after plunging earlier in the session on a dismal reading on US consumer confidence.

At the close (8am NZ time), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 20.70 points, or 0.2%, to 11,559.95, closer to erasing all of this year's losses.

Earlier, the Dow fell as much as 110 points after the Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence dropped this month.

On Monday, the Dow registered a 254-point gain, aided by relief that Hurricane Irene wasn't as damaging as initially feared.

The S&P 500 index gained 0.2%, to 1212.90 and the technology-oriented Nasdaq Composite was up 0.55%, to 2576.11.

Other markets: Europe, Asia up
European stock markets ended mostly higher, with gains in the financial and basic-resources sectors outweighing a weak US consumer confidence and a steeper-than-expected drop in euro-zone economic sentiment.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 1% to close at 230.64, following a gain of 1.2% on Monday.

London stocks caught up to the gains made on Monday, when the UK was closed for a holiday. The FTSE 100 index rose 2.7% to 5260.66.

Germany's DAX, fell 0.5% to 5643.92 and France's CAC-40 gained 0.2% to 3159.74.

Asian stock markets ended higher, with resources and banking shares among the best performers.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average closed up 1.2% at 8953.90, Korea's Kospi ended with a 0.8% gain to 1843.82, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index finished 0.1% higher at 4269.2 and India's Sensex rose 1.6% to 16,676.75.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index led the region with a 1.7% gain, to 20,204.17, while China's Shanghai Composite went its own way, losing 0.4% to finish at 2566.59.

Commodities: Oil, gold rise
Oil futures pushed higher on expectations the US Federal Reserve will continue its easy-money policy.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery was up $US1.47, or 1.7%, to $US88.74 barrel in New York. Brent crude traded up $US1.94, or 1.7%, to $US113.82 a barrel.

Gold futures climbed to a one-week high on the view that the central banks in the US and Europe may ease monetary policy in an effort to jumpstart growth.

Gold for September delivery rose $US38.20, or 2.1%, to settle at $US1826.70 an ounce in New York. It was the contract's highest settlement value since August 23.

Currencies: US dollar, euro fall
The dollar and the euro both fell along with consumer confidence in their underlying economies. The dollar fell to a session low against the yen,

The euro was at $US1.4427 compared with $US1.4511 late on Monday. The dollar was at ¥76.77 from ¥76.83, while the euro was at ¥110.76 from ¥111.52.

The UK pound was at $US1.6277 from $US1.6408, while the dollar was at 0.8168 Swiss franc from 0.8158 franc.