While you were sleeping: UDATED US stocks climb along with oil prices

Wall Street climbed along with oil prices, while beaten-down financial stocks also gained.

Crude oil prices rose 2.9% to $US33.07 a barrel and energy stocks in the S&P 500 erased earlier declines after Venezuela’s oil minister said in a televised interview that the country would meet with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar about efforts to stabilise oil markets.

Stocks were also buoyed by a better-than-expected report on US durable goods orders that bolstered sentiment about the nation's economy.

A Commerce Department report showed orders for durable goods jumped 4.9% in January, after a 4.6% drop in December, helping to alleviate concerns about the country's manufacturing industry.

Separately, a Labor Department report showed jobless claims rose 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 272,000 for the week ended February 20. The four-week moving average of claims fell 1250 to 272,000.

"The manufacturing malaise that plagues the US is not broad-based," Jacob Oubina, senior US economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York, told Reuters. "You don't get a recession when capital spending is at worst, moving sideways, and jobless claims are near cycle lows on a trend basis."

Dow rises 195 points
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0194.98 points, or 1.2% to 16,679.97, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.7% to 4574.44 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.0% to 1949.67.

"The data on durable goods will help assuage fears that a recession is lurking," Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial, told Bloomberg.

"If we can get some more data releases showing some less bad data or stabilisation it may help push us higher. The market is craving that right now."

Meanwhile, US corporate earnings have so far managed to beat expectations. About three-quarters of S&P 500 firms have exceeded profit projections, while less than half topped sales forecasts, according to Bloomberg.

Analysts estimate earnings at S&P 500 companies fell 4.2% in the fourth quarter, compared with January 15 predictions for a 7% slump.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index finished the session with an increase of 2% from the previous close on better-than-expected corporate earnings. Germany's DAX Index added 1.8%, France's CAC 40 Index gained 2.2%, while the UK's FTSE 100 Index rallied 2.5%.

(BusinessDesk)