* Stocks up with earnings in focus
* Wall Street seen opening lower
* ECB keeps interest rates on hold
* Dollar slightly stronger, Aussie jumps
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Investors moved past concerns
about weakening demand from China on Thursday, generally upping
their exposure to risk in bets on a global upturn that lifted
stocks and the Australian dollar.
Corporate earnings remained clearly in focus, however, with
Intel <INTC.O> results due later in the day and JPMorgan <JPM.N>
on Friday. Wall Street looked set to open lower ahead of the
results.
China rattled investors earlier in the week by tightening
monetary policy, a move that set off concerns that one of the
current engines of global economic growth could cool.
The concerns were short-lived, however, allowing investors
to fall back into the risk-buying patterns that have generally
carried over into 2010 from last year.
MSCI's all-country world stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> was up
0.3 percent for a roughly 3 percent gain this year on top of
more than 31 percent last year.
The pan European FTSEurofirst 300 <> was up 0.4
percent. Japan's Nikkei <> closed up 1.6 percent at a
15-month closing high.
The immediate future of the rally may depend on some key
corporate results.
"Earnings will be the most decisive factor during the next
couple of weeks," said Koen De Leus, economist at KBC
Securities.
"Everything now depends on the results of Intel and
JPMorgan. If they are better-than-expected, then this rally can
go on little bit further. If the results fail to impress, then
we could see a correction."
The European Central Bank, as expected, left its currently
loose interest rate policy. But there are here a number of
concerns about the impact of indebted Greece on the euro zone.
The cost of insuring Greece's sovereign debt against default
rose to a new record high of 334,800 euros per 10 million euros
of exposure on Thursday, according to 5-year credit default swap
prices from CMA DataVision. []
Analysts in a Reuters poll say there is a one in five chance
Greece will seek a financial bailout. []
AUSSIE BOOST
After the ECB, the euro was slightly lower against the
dollar at $1.4487 <EUR=>,
The Australian dollar jumped early in Thursday's session
after a solid Australian employment report triggered thoughts of
higher interest rates, encouraging investors to pick up the
higher-yielding currency and others like it.
The Australian dollar hit a two-month high of $0.9331,
taking it closer to the 2009 high of $0.9407. It was later up
half a percent at $0.9286 <AUD=>.
Employment in Australia has now climbed 135,700 in the past
four months to stand at 10.9 million. In the United States that
would equate to an increase of around 1.6 million in non-farm
payrolls, compared with the 347,000 jobs actually lost.
Euro zone government debt prices were slightly lower.
(Additional reporting by Atul Prakash and Jessica Mortimer;
Editing by Toby Chopra)
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