Global Stocks Up After S&P Hit New High

(AP) -- Shares were mostly higher in Europe on Friday after a mixed session in Asia.

Benchmarks rose in Paris, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Shares fell in Shanghai and Seoul.

An official newspaper, the Securities Times, and other state media said China Evergrande Group made an overdue bond payment on Friday.

Evergrande wired $83.5 million to account for a bond payment that was due Sept. 23, the reports said. The company's Hong Kong-traded shares gained 4.3%.

The property developer's struggle to reduce its 2 trillion yuan ($310 billion) of debt to comply with tighter official curbs on borrowing has prompted fears a default might trigger a financial crisis.

The news of the payment followed Evergrande's announcement a day earlier that it was running into difficulties selling assets to alleviate its liquidity crisis and that a plan to sell its property services arm had fallen through.

Germany's DAX gained 0.4% to 15,535.16. In Paris, the CAC 40 jumped 1.1% to 6,759.46, while Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.4% to 7,220.57. The future for the S&P 500 was nearly unchanged while the future for the Dow industrials gained less than 0.1%.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 4,549.78, its seventh straight gain. That eclipsed the record high it set on Sept. 2. It is on pace for its third straight weekly gain.

The Dow slipped less than 0.1%, to 35,603.08. It is just below its all-time high set on Aug. 16. The Nasdaq gained 0.6% to 15,215.70, while the Russell 2000 rose 0.3%, to 2,296.18.

In Asian trading on Friday, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong climbed 0.4% to 26,126.93 and the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.3% to 3,582.60.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 28,804.85, while the Kospi in Seoul lost less than 0.1% to 3,006.16. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was flat at 7,415.50.

Investors continued to watch how global supply chain problems and rising prices are affecting corporate earnings. Many companies have warned such trends will hurt their operations. Wall Street is trying to gauge just how much it will sting corporate profit growth and margins.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 1.69%.

In other trading on Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 30 cents to $82.80 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gave up 92 cents to $82.50 per barrel on Thursday.

Brent crude, used as a standard for global pricing, picked up 30 cents to $84.91 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar slipped to 113.98 Japanese yen from 113.99 yen late Thursday. The euro advanced to $1.1639 from $1.1624.