Stocks rally, euro falls as ECB open to more stimulus

By David Gaffen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose in the United States and Europe and the dollar rallied against the euro after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said further rate cuts were considered to stimulate the euro zone economy.

Worries that global economic growth is slowing, particularly in China, have depressed stock and commodity markets across the world in recent months and prompted a series of downgrades to economic forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and others.

The ECB, as widely expected, took no new steps on Thursday, but Draghi signalled that it could extend its 1 trillion euro bond-buying quantitative easing scheme if necessary to combat weak inflation.

"We are ready to act if needed ... and we are open to the full menu of monetary policy," Draghi said at his press conference.

Wall Street was higher, gaining ground after the ECB news and earnings reports that included better-than-expected figures from McDonald's Corp to weak figures from Caterpillar and Raytheon.

A global index of equities rose 0.7 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 215.29 points, or 1.25 percent, to 17,383.9, the S&P 500 gained 24.51 points, or 1.21 percent, to 2,043.45 and the Nasdaq Composite added 68.13 points, or 1.41 percent, to 4,908.24.

The dollar edged up against a basket of currencies . The U.S. unit has been losing ground in the past month as expectations waned for an interest rate hike this year by the Federal Reserve.

The euro fell 1.5 percent after the ECB decision, moving sharply lower after Draghi's comments, trading at $1.1169, a three-week low. It also fell to a one-month low against sterling. Against the yen, the dollar was up 0.4 percent to 119.78 yen .

"Draghi delivered all kinds of dovish signals which weighed on the euro," said Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at BNP Paribas in New York. "He was as dovish as can be without changing policy."

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 stocks index rose 2 percent. An increased full-year sales outlook from Swiss drugmaker Roche helped support the index. The company's shares were up 2.8 percent.

Earlier, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.2 percent. Japan's Nikkei <.N225> closed down 0.6 percent.

Euro zone government bonds rallied, with benchmark German 10-year Bund prices rising 19/32 to drop the yield to 0.50 percent, down 0.06 percentage point.

U.S. Treasury yields were little changed, with the 10-year note yield edging up to 2.039 percent. One-month bill yields rose by 0.03 percentage point to 0.05 percent after the U.S. Treasury Department said it would postpone a coming two-year note auction due to uncertainty about whether Congress would raise the U.S. borrowing limit in a timely fashion.

Oil prices rose slightly after hitting a three-week low on Wednesday after a larger-than-expected rise in U.S. crude stocks. Brent , the global benchmark, was last up 36 cents at $48.20 a barrel. U.S. crude rose 29 cents to $45.49 a barrel.

Gold held near its lowest in more than a week, last trading at $1,164 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo, Nichola Saminather in Singapore and Marius Zaharia and Simon Falush in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Dave Gregorio)