Global equities helped by earnings

By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - Equities rose across the world on Friday after encouraging earnings signals from technology firms such as IBM and a slowly improving tone in beleaguered short-term money markets helped ease recession fears.

European shares were up more than 3 percent following gains in Asia. Overnight, Wall Street ended a volatile Thursday with gains of more than 4 percent.

The dollar was flat to weaker against major currencies and euro zone government bonds sold off mildly. Oil prices rose nearly $2 a barrel to near $72, helped by the equity gains and growing expectations for an OPEC production cut.

Investors have been shifting their attention over the past week from the still volatile financial crisis to the prospect of a global recession.

"There's still nervousness in the market about the real economy, but in terms of valuations the price is good right now," said Nagayuki Yamagishi, a strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities in Japan.

"The economic problems are the main theme of the market right now and everybody knows this, so rises will be limited."

Among the factors helping investors look past the immediate problems were some better-than-expected corporate news.

International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) said on Thursday it expects to meet long-term profit forecasts, partly due to continued growth in emerging markets.