World shares up on US jobs data

World shares gained and the dollar extended its falls against the euro on Friday after data showed US payrolls grew modestly in January and that gains in the previous two months were bigger than initially reported.

American employers added 157,000 new jobs to their payrolls in January, a marginal rise from December's 155,000 gain. There were 127,000 more jobs created in November and December than previously reported.

The jobs growth figures soothed some of the concerns about the outlook for the U.S. economy after disappointing fourth quarter GDP figures were released last week.

"It's not a bad report, given all the headwinds from year-end. It's consistent with moderate job growth. It's a slight improvement, but it's still weaker than what it needs to be," said Craig Dismuke, chief economic strategist for Vining Sparks.

The euro jumped to a high of $1.3658 after the data, and was last at $1.3646, up 0.5% on the day.

The dollar also trimmed some of its gains against the Japanese yen and was trading at a 3-1/2 month low against a basket of the world's major currencies, after falling 0.3% to 78.96 points.

On Wall Street, S&P 500 futures rose 6 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration of the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 75 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 19 points.

The MSCI world equity index was up 0.3%, having strengthened earlier on factory activity surveys for January in China and the euro zone, which increased optimism over the global growth outlook.