European stocks rose, Wall Street was set for a firmer opening and government bonds slipped on Friday after closely-watched data showed the U.S. economy lost 663,000 jobs, not so far from the forecast.
The unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent, its highest since 1983.
While the data highlighted the growing distress in the labor market, investors were relieved the economy did not lose more jobs than they feared.
"It gives the market a sense that we dodged a bullet in the very, very near term. It's positive in that it wasn't a blowout number of more than 750,000," said Peter Kenny, managing director of Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey.
"All the indexes are higher because the market is breathing a sigh of relief because it wasn't a blowout of market psychology. It indicates a slackening of the rate of decline and leaves the bear market rally intact."
The MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS was up a quarter percent. The FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 rose 0.15 percent on the day, while emerging stocks .MSCIEF were up 0.6 percent.
U.S. stock futures were pointing to a firmer open on Wall Street later.
Broad gains in the equity market come a day after Group of 20 leaders presented a united front to combat the financial crisis, sending risky assets higher.
At their London summit, G20 leaders pledged $1.1 trillion of additional funds to the International Monetary Fund and other institutions and to boost trade finance.
World stocks have risen more than 20 percent since hitting a 5-1/2 year low in March and investors are closely watching if the rally could be sustainable this time even with some consolidation.
"There is still a lot of volatility and I think these ambiguous ups and downs are typically what happens when the market is starting to turn around," said Bernard McAlinden, strategist at NCB Stockbrokers.
"We had a good day yesterday. The G20 was less vague than probably the market had been expecting and the IMF deal will be good for European equities. There has also been a lot of mixed economic data."
U.S. crude oil fell 1 percent to $52.16 after surging 9 percent on Thursday.
The June bund futures fell 42 ticks.
The dollar .DXY was steady against a basket of major currencies while the low-yielding yen lost 0.4 percent to 100.07 per dollar.
