LONDON: Asian and European stocks rallied Thursday but failed to provide momentum to Wall Street which edged lower as traders weighed Opec’s surprise deal to limit oil output.

After initially lighting a fire under oil prices, enthusiasm for the announcement by major oil producers fizzled over Opec’s ability to seriously tackle a supply glut.

Crude prices later fell back as doubts set in about the deal, struck in Algiers Wednesday, but energy-linked currencies and petroleum-linked shares held on to strong share price gains.

Briefing.com Patrick O’Hare said the market was sceptical of the agreement by oil producers to limit output, saying “talk is cheap without action.”

However, Chevron and ConocoPhillips were among energy shares in the US that moved higher early Thursday, while Royal Dutch Shell and BP made strong gains in London.

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 gained just over 1.0 per cent overall.

In the Eurozone, the Paris CAC 40 was 0.9 per cent higher and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 rose 0.45 per cent compared with Wednesday’s closing levels.

Details of the deal remain to be agreed and analysts said markets will now wait to see whether non-Opec producers such as Russia, the United States and Canada will make cuts of their own.

Russian shares climbed Thursday buoyed by developments in the oil industry, while the country’s currency, the rouble, which lost nearly half its value in 2014, strengthened slightly.

Other energy and commodity-linked currencies, such as the Malaysian ringgit and Canadian dollar, forged higher against the greenback.

“Opec’s production cut offers support for oil-related currencies,” noted Lee Hardman, analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

Hardman added that the brief oil-price surge “helped to improve investor risk sentiment, lifting global equity markets, particularly shares of energy companies”.

US traders also had some better than expected economic data to assess, as estimates for second-quarter growth were upgraded and jobless claims remained low, indicating a strong labour market.

Wall Street slipped slightly after opening.

In Asia, the share price of Chinese energy giant CNOOC piled on more than five per cent and PetroChina added three per cent, while Sydney-listed Woodside Petroleum won more than seven per cent.

Elsewhere, Germany’s banking sector was in sharp focus as the country’s second largest lender Commerzbank said it plans to cut 9,600 jobs, or one-fifth of its workforce, by 2020 and withhold dividends to pay for a 1.1-billion-euro ($1.23-billion) restructuring.

Commerzbank shares were down more than 2.0 per cent in afternoon deals, while Deutsche Bank rebounded after the troubled lender’s share price sank to a record-low earlier this week.

— Key figures at 1345 GMT -

===========================

London — FTSE 100: UP 1.05 per cent at 6,921.32

Frankfurt — DAX 30: UP 0.45 per cent at 10,485.19

Paris — CAC 40: UP 0.9 per cent at 4,473.09

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.6 per cent at 3,008.85

New York — DOW: DOWN 0.1 per cent to 18,327.88

Tokyo — Nikkei 225: UP 1.4 per cent at 16,693.71 (close)

Hong Kong — Hang Seng: UP 0.5 per cent at 23,739.47 (close)

Shanghai — Composite: UP 0.4 per cent at 2,998.48 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1211 from $1.1217 late Wednesday

Dollar/yen: UP at 101.65 yen from 100.70 yen

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3004 from $1.3022