While you were sleeping: UPDATED Oil lifts global stocks

Global stocks continued to climb with the price of oil, underpinning investors' demand for recently battered stocks such as banks and miners.

At the Wall Street close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 228.67points, or 1.4%, to 16,620.66, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 1.5% to 4570.61. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.45% to 1945.50.

Gains in shares of UnitedHealth Group and those of Caterpillar, last up 3.6% and 2.7% respectively, led the advance in the Dow. All but one of the 30 stocks on the Dow traded higher.

Oil prices rallied, with West Texas Intermediate moving above $US32 a barrel, amid bets the worst might be over now that Saudi Arabia and Russia have agreed to freeze production at January levels.

"For various reasons, traders are becoming convinced that the market won't go much lower," Pete Donovan, crude broker at Liquidity Energy in New York, told Reuters.

"This includes the falling US rig count, the output freeze OPEC is trying to achieve with non-OPEC members, the apparent lack of Iranian barrels flooding the market after the sanction lifted against them and the potential for geopolitical stress."

Europe remains in doldrums
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the session with an advance of 1.7% from the previous close, bolstered by a recovery in mining stocks. The UK's FTSE 100 Index increased 1.5%, France's CAC 40 Index added 1.8%, while Germany's DAX Index rallied 2%.

The latest data supported bets that the European Central Bank might add to its monetary stimulus measures to help stoke the region's economy.

The Eurozone Purchasing Managers Index composite output index for February was a lower-than-expected 52.7, down from 53.6 the previous month, and the lowest level in 13 months.

"There's not enough of a strong pattern in the headline data to suggest that the economy is very much out of the doldrums," Matthew Cairns, a strategist at Rabobank International in London, told Bloomberg.

"The program is obviously going to be ultimately expanded – it looks as if [European Central Bank president Mario] Draghi has drummed up enough support in the governing council," Mr Cairns said. "This is a bullish environment because, at the end of the day, the ECB is going to throw absolutely everything it can at the market in an attempt to turn expectations around."

German economy flags
The eurozone's engine economy is flagging, too. The Germany Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index slid to 50.2 this month, from 52.3 in January, while a composite measure posted the lowest reading since July.

"The German economy appears to be in the midst of a slowdown," Oliver Kolodseike, an economist at Markit, said in a statement.

"While service providers continued to record solid growth in output and new business, the slowdown in the goods-producing sector intensified, with the headline PMI just about managing to remain above the neutral 50.0 mark.

"That said, the latest reading was the worst since November 2014 and indicative of a near-stagnation in the sector,."

The UK pound weakened a day after London mayor Boris Johnson said he would be campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union in June's referendum.

(BusinessDesk)