At 11:18 a.m. ET (1518 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 221.84 points, or 0.41%, to 53,684.43, the S&P 500 .SPX rose 52.19 points, or 0.68%, to 7,727.72 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC rose 356.12 points, or 1.36%, to 26,486.31.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS rose 4.32 points, or 0.38%, to 1,154.25.
The pan-European STOXX 600 .STOXX fell 0.74%, while growing concerns over the political outlook in France drove the CAC 40 .FCHI blue-chip index in Paris down 1.8% and it hit its lowest level since July 24.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares excluding Japan .MISX00000PUS closed up 0.3%, stretching its gains into a third consecutive day. South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 pared earlier gains to close up 1.5%, after the Bank of Korea raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 3%, in line with market expectations.
In Treasuries, the yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes US10YT=RR fell 0.76 basis points to 4.656%, from 4.664% late on Wednesday, while the 30-year bond US30YT=RR yield fell 0.44 basis points to 5.1806%.
The 2-year note US2YT=RR yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 0.64 basis points to 4.218%.
In currencies, the dollar was little changed after Labor Department data showed that weekly initial jobless claims fell for a second straight week, with attention shifting to Warsh's speech.
The dollar index =USD, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.02% to 99.14, with the euro EUR= up 0.02% at $1.165. Against the Japanese yen JPY=, the dollar strengthened 0.01% to 159.3.
In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin BTC= gained 2.88% to $80,699.22.
In precious metals, spot gold XAU= rose 0.07% to $4,595.95 an ounce while spot silver XAG= rose 1.04% to $68.81 an ounce.
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