While you were sleeping: UPDATED Amazon leads broad rally, oil rises 2.3%

Equities surged on both sides of the Atlantic with the price of commodities, while Amazon shares offered a boost as well.

Shares of Amazon rallied, trading 3.1% higher at $US700.51 as of 2.59 pm in New York, after touching a record high $US701.93 earlier in the session.

Sanford Bernstein Co analyst Carlos Kirjner raised his price target on Amazon's stock to $US1000, well above the consensus.

"We think Amazon's businesses are now so large, fast-growing, and profitable that it is harder and harder for the company to find new areas of investment to keep up with the growth in gross profits," Mr Kiriner wrote, according to Bloomberg. "Time is on the side of margin expansion."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 222.44 points, or 1.3%, to 17,928.35. The Nasdaq Composite index added 1.3%, to 4809.88 and the S&P 500 rose 1.2%, to 2084.39. The two indexes posted their largest percentage gains since March 11.

Gains in shares of Caterpillar and Goldman Sachs, both up 2.5%, led the Dow higher.

Allergan improves
Shares of Allergan climbed 4.4% after the maker of Botox posted a quarterly profit that exceeded expectations. Last month Pfizer and Allergan abandoned their US$160 billion merger plans.

"With this highly controversial quarter now in the rear view mirror, we see an attractive setup in Allergan shares going forward based on a combination of attractive valuation, healthy organic growth and significant capital deployment optionality," JP Morgan analyst Chris Schott told Reuters.

There were disappointments too. Shares of Gap sank 12% weaker, after the apparel maker posted yet another decline in quarterly sales.

"The most concerning part of this narrative might be that management was surprised by the weak sales, which suggests further transformation likely lies ahead," Simeon Siegel, an analyst at Nomura Securities, said in a note to clients, according to Bloomberg. "Gap's business may simply be too large."

Optimism in Europe 'premature'
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the day with a 0.9% increase from the previous close. Credit Suisse Group shares jumped 5% after the bank reported a narrower-than-expected loss.

"Credit Suisse earnings weren't great, but they were better than the worst of expectations," Michael Hewson, a London-based market analyst at CMC Markets, told Bloomberg.

France's CAC 40 index added 0.4%, while Germany's DAX index gained 0.7%. The UK's FTSE 100 index also rose 0.7%.

However, market sentiment might be misplaced, Mr Hewson noted.

"The optimism is a little premature," Mr Hewson told Bloomberg. "Economic data hasn't been very convincing."

US oil prices rose 2.8% to $US44.66 a barrel, as supply disruptions in Canada, Nigeria and elsewhere helped alleviate concerns about the global glut of crude.

"The market is getting support from the disruption in Canadian oil sands production and increased threats to output in the Niger Delta," Gene McGillian, a senior analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut, told Bloomberg. "The underlying fundamentals remain weak. If not for supply disruptions and the decline in US production, prices would be lower."

(BusinessDesk)