The China Mail - Stocks rise in thin post-Thanksgiving trading

US indices completed a week of gains in a lightly traded half-session following Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday. Stocks rose all four days the market was open.

"Stocks have erased November's losses during today's shortened trading session, as confidence of a December rate cut coincide with favorable seasonals for markets," said a note from Interactive Brokers' Jose Torres that highlighted the possibility of further gains in December.

Earlier Friday, European bourses also pushed higher.

Without direction overnight from New York, Asian markets moved with little conviction.

While investors have been preoccupied at times in November with worry about excessive valuations for artificial intelligence stocks, that sentiment has been countered by growing confidence in further Fed rate cuts.

Attention now turns to data releases over the next week or so that could play a role in the bank's final decision, with private hiring, services activity and personal consumption expenditure -- the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation.

With the recent government shutdown postponing or cancelling the release of some key data, closely watched non-farm payrolls figures are now due in mid-December, after the Fed's policy decision.

Markets see around an 87-percent chance of a cut next month and three more in 2026.

Trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the world's major operators, was halted by a technical outage first reported at 0240 GMT Friday.

"Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers, our markets are currently halted," the CME said in a statement.

"All CME Group markets are open and trading," it said in a later statement.

Market participants rely heavily on CME platforms to manage risk through futures contracts tied, for example, to stock indices, interest rates and currencies.

- Key figures at around 2030 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.6 percent at 47,716.42 (close)

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.5 percent at 6,849.09 (close)

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.7 percent at 23,365.69 (close)

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 9,720.51 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.3 percent at 8,122.71 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.3 percent at 23,836.79 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.2 percent at 50,253.91 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.3 percent at 25,858.89 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 3,888.60 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1604 from $1.1596 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3245 from $1.3240

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 156.10 yen from 156.31 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 87.60 pence from 87.58 pence

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.2 percent at $63.20 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.2 percent at $58.55 per barrel

burs-jmb/des

S.Wilson--ThChM