Asian stocks rose on Friday as positive U.S. data raised hopes that the world's number one economy is growing strongly. Japan's Nikkei rose 1.5%. China's Shanghai index rose 0.60%. Australia's S&P\ASX 200 index rose 0.73%. Other indexes bucked the trend however, with India's Nifty index falling 0.10%, Korea's KOSPI falling 0.13%.

U.S. stocks ended Thursday on a high note, as data showed unemployment claims falling to a 42-year low, also core CPI was up 0.2%, beating forecasts of a 0.1% rise. Dow Jones ended 1.28% higher. S&P 500 ended up 1.49%. NASDAQ was the biggest gainer with a 1.82% rise.

Dollar recovered strongly after the data. On Friday the Dollar index (DXY) was still up at 94.50. It was flat against Euro at 1.1386 after a big rally yesterday. Against Sterling it tapered some of its gains, trading at 1.5470. It's up against Yen for the second day, rising 0.28% on Friday to 119.17.

Euro stabilized after big losses yesterday. It's nearly flat against Sterling at 0.7357. Against Yen it rose to 135.61.

U.S. oil futures rose on Thursday on the back of the strong U.S. economic data, with December futures ending up 54 cents, or 1.15% to $47.41 a barrel. Brent futures rose 0.95% to $50.20 a barrel.

Spot gold is down 11 dollars, or 0.92% to $1,176 an ounce. Silver fell 13 cents, or 0.83% to $16.03 an ounce.

A raft of indicators will be released today, most notably the final CPI for the Eurozone in September, expected to stay at -0.1%. Falling short of expectations would pressure ECB to expand its stimulus, which would push Euro down.

Also for the Euro, the trade balance report for August is coming out, forecast to have a surplus of 22.2B, down from 22.4B in July. A higher number would raise Euro, and vice versa.

From Canada, manufacturing sales data for August are released today, forecast to have fallen a sharp 0.8% m\m, from July's 1.7 rise. A lower fall would delight Canadian dollar traders and rally it.