STOCKS REACH FOR RECORDS AS U.S. JOBLESS CLAIMS DIVE

Europe's financial markets made a solid start to the second half of the year with stocks brushing off a rapid re-acceleration in coronavirus cases and oil and the dollar extending their first semester rallies, Marc Jones reported for Reuters.

London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Milan overcame a mid-morning wobble to keep the pan-European STOXX 600 reaching for a record high. Wall Street, which had hit its fifth in a row on Wednesday, was cheered by a 21-year low in jobless claims.

In an Asia session thinned by a holiday in Hong Kong, Japan's Nikkei had fallen 0.3% and the yen hit a 15-month low as sources in Tokyo said COVID restrictions were likely to be extended.

There was little sign of oil prices easing off, either despite reports OPEC and other oil producers could soon increase production.

Brent was up nearly 2.5% at just over $76 a barrel after a roaring 45% first-half rise had scored one of its best starts to a year on record.

Eurozone government bond yields also inched up as the latest economic data showed the 19-country bloc's manufacturing sector expanded at a record pace last month. Firms are also seeing the steepest rise in raw materials costs in well over two decades.

"Eurozone manufacturing continued to grow at a rate unbeaten in almost 24 years of survey history in June as demand surged with the further relaxation of COVID-19 containment measures," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.

"However, the sheer speed of the recent upsurge in demand has led to a sellers' market as capacity and transportation constraints limit the availability of inputs to factories, which have in turn driven industrial prices higher at a rate not previously witnessed by the survey."

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