Stock indexes rose after European leaders pledged to help Greece with its growing debt crisis.
Greece’s debt problems have been spooking global markets for weeks, and hopes that a rescue was on the way helped lead stocks higher in the U.S. and Europe over the past three days.
The Labor Department’s report that first-time claims for jobless benefits fell more than expected last week was also supporting the market.
Expectations had been building that a Thursday summit of European leaders would produce a solution for the problem, but the verbal commitment that emerged to provide unspecified help to Greece later only partly assuaged investors’ concerns. European officials are not expected to disclose specifics of the plan until early next week.
“We’re close to weathering the Greece situation,” said Stephen Wood, chief market strategist at Russell Investments.
Greece’s fiscal crisis has been undermining confidence in Europe’s shared currency, the euro, which fell again against the dollar after the anticlimactic summit in Europe.
Fiscal problems at other weak European economies including Portugal and Spain have also been weakening faith in the euro, which is shared by 16 countries but has no central fiscal authority. Runaway deficit spending in weaker states like Greece has tested the market’s faith in the euro countries to keep their budgets under control. (AP)