European stocks hit one-week highs as they headed for a fourth straight day of gains, adding as much as 1% before falling back. Chipmakers buoyed the tech sector after Nvidia's third-quarter revenue forecast beat expectations by billions of dollars. Rate-sensitive real estate stocks also rose, adding as much as 2.1%.

A round of soft manufacturing surveys on Wednesday has also revived hopes that central banks are approaching the end of their interest rate hiking cycles.

Investors were waiting for clues on the future path of U.S. interest rates from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who is set to give a speech at an annual central bank summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday.

"To see what Jerome Powell now says in the light of some weaker underlying economic data - How he's going to message? Are we at the peak? Are we going to hold? - I think it's the absolutely crucial thing," said Robert Alster, chief investment officer at Close Brothers Asset Management.

Wall Street was set to rise, with S&P 500 futures gauges up 0.6%.

U.S. stocks ended sharply higher on Wednesday and shares of Nvidia jumped nearly 10% in trading after the bell, hitting an all-time high.

The company's revenue forecast demonstrated how a boom in generative AI technologies that can read and write in human-like ways - and powered almost exclusively by Nvidia's chips - shows no signs of slowing down.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, gained 0.2%.

Elsewhere, the Turkish lira leapt more than 2% to 26.605 versus the dollar after a bigger-than-expected 750 basis point rate hike, with stocks on the country's main banking index gaining more than 9%.

EASING YIELDS

Government bond yields eased, adding to a sense of relief across markets.

Euro zone yields hit multi-week lows with Germany's 10-year yield 1.5 bps lower at 2.50%, having touched a 2-week low of 2.448%.

The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes reached 4.21%, compared with its U.S. close of 4.198% on Wednesday, when it eased from near-16-year highs after weak business activity data from the United States and the euro zone.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 1.5% higher, also lifted by Nvidia's bullish outlook.

Still, the index is down about 8% so far this month due to weakness in China's economy and yuan, as well as some gloomy factory readings from Japan, which also left sentiment fragile.

China stocks also rebounded on Thursday, however, with the blue-chip CSI300 index advancing 0.7%.

In currency markets, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six other major currencies, added 0.2%, and remains higher over the month.

The euro edged down 0.1% against the dollar, which earlier nursed some losses against Asian currencies, clipped by the softer-than-expected global economic data.

The Chinese yuan inched higher as the central bank continued to fix the daily mid-point at stronger-than-expected levels.

"With the Chinese currency edging higher today, foreign capital has flowed back into and helped stabilize China's stock markets," Zhang Zihua, chief investment officer at Beijing Yunyi Asset Management.