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The euro was cheered by upbeat German data and central bank buying, though doubts about Europe's ability to beef up a sovereign rescue fund kept a lid on gains.

U.S. stocks shook off concerns surrounding Apple Inc (AAPL.O), which was hit by news of Chief Executive Steve Jobs' medical leave, helped by strong earnings for the iPhone and iPad maker whose share rose more than 4 percent in extended trade.

Optimism about earnings has helped bolster U.S. stocks in recent weeks, fuelling hopes that the world's No.1 economy could return to a sustainable recovery path and that Japanese firms would follow suit and show a recovery in earnings.

Google (GOOG.O), whose increased price targets lifted its shares, reports later this week, and results of the heavy equipment maker Caterpillar (CAT.N) are due next week. .N

Earnings for the financial sector are also on the way: Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) later in the day, Morgan Stanley (MS.N) on Thursday and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) on Friday.

"After Google reports tomorrow investors will shift their focus back to Tokyo companies," said Hiroaki Osakabe, a fund manager at Chibagin Asset Management.

"As most of them are expected to post strong earnings, the market will look for news about how they're going to sustain that performance in the long run."

EURO ZONE DEBT

Japan's Nikkei average .N225 rose 0.2 percent to 10535.70, while the MSCI index of Asia and Pacific shares excluding Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up 0.51 percent. .T

Concerns over the euro zone's debt problems are still around, but sentiment improved in the wake of news that foreign buyers took up about 80 percent of Greek Treasury bills at Tuesday's auction.

"Foreign demand is soaking up this pressure and I think that is a very important development. But it's only enough to hold euro in a range," said Robert Rennie, chief currency strategist at Westpac Bank.

"Euro is in a very well rehearsed $1.29-$1.3450/3500 range. I'd be surprised if we break out on the top side. What you're seeing is positioning washing back and forth."

After hitting as high as $1.3467 overnight, the euro last traded at around $1.3424. Resistance at the top-end of a prevailing range is expected to keep the single currency capped for now.

U.S. crude futures extended declines on Wednesday, pressured by the restart of the Trans Alaska Pipeline and as the International Energy Agency said OPEC may have quietly raised production in response to prices nearing $100. <O/R>

Spot gold rose by 0.4 percent to $1,373.3 an ounce by 0205 GMT, supported by steady physical demand in Asia and strength in the euro currency.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo, Ian Chua in Sydney; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Shares in Apple leapt almost 4 percent after hours following a brief trading suspension. It later backtracked to stand about 2 percent higher, recouping most of the losses incurred after Jobs' surprise announcement.

Apple, once notorious for its conservative forecasts, said it expected earnings for the March quarter of $4.90 a share on revenue of $22 billion (�13.8 billion), surpassing the forecast of $4.47 a share on revenue of $20.8 billion.

An across-the-board show of strength came as Wall Street displayed increasing confidence in the management team surrounding Jobs, who seeks medical treatment for an unspecified condition for an indefinite time.

Investors were widely expecting a strong performance from Apple over the holidays, and the company did not disappoint.

All key product lines exceeded expectations. The company sold 16.2 million iPhones in the quarter, up 86 percent. It also had strong sales of 7.33 million iPads, and Mac sales rose 23 percent on a unit basis to 4.1 million units.

Executives said they could not build enough iPhones to meet demand. But it was the iPad, which executives claimed about four out of five Fortune 100 companies were now field-testing, that caught investors' attention.

"The iPad numbers were huge. The production issues people were worried about are obviously behind and the demand for a new product continues to be strong," said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu.

Jobs' role is "important but at the same time, as the company continues to execute, it becomes more secondary. The way Steve thinks, his methodology, his sense of style: frankly, a lot of it has been ingrained into the Apple culture."

THINGS NOT FALLING APART

The world's largest technology company by market capitalization said on Monday that Jobs, 55, was taking a medical leave of absence without specifying a return date or detailing his condition.

Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor who underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and his health have been in the spotlight for years, but Cook and the rest of Apple's upper echelons had led the company capably during two previous absences, winning over Wall Street.

But aside from its chieftain's health, the company is entering 2011 on a roll, a cash-generating machine with surging sales across its product lines. In coming months, the company's iPhone will go on Verizon Wireless' network, further accelerating sales of the smartphone.

Strong sales in the Asia Pacific region kept growth sizzling: Apple saw revenue nearly triple to some $5 billion in the first quarter, propelled by a booming market in China.

And at more than 7 million sold versus the roughly 6 million expected, Apple's iPad has not only virtually created the tablet market, but has become a significant slice of business for the consumer electronics powerhouse.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice approved the deal more than a year after the companies announced it. When it closes, it will create a media powerhouse that will control not just how television shows and movies are made, but how they are delivered to people's homes.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, is buying a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal from General Electric Co to create a $30 billion business that would include broadcast, cable networks, movie studios and theme parks.

Approval had been expected for several weeks, and it came as little surprise that the FCC and Justice Department on Tuesday attached strict conditions to the deal.

Chief among the requirements is that Comcast give up what the Justice Department described as management rights to Hulu, the online video site co-owned by News Corp, Walt Disney Co and NBC Universal.

While Comcast and NBC Universal could remain part owners of the site, they will relinquish voting rights and board representation.

The requirement is unwelcome for company managers, but it amounts to an inconvenience in the context of a deal that brings Comcast cable networks like MSNBC and USA, along with the NBC broadcast television network, analysts said.

"It's of minimal concern since NBC was only one of the investors in Hulu with less than 30 percent ownership anyway," said Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce.

From the start, the future of online video as a competitor to traditional cable TV distribution was a major concern for the regulators. In the end, they will require Comcast to commit to a mechanism that would allow other online video providers -- a telecommunications company, for example -- to have access to certain NBC Universal shows.

"We have adopted strong and fair merger conditions to ensure this transaction serves the public interest," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement after the vote on Tuesday. The FCC voted 4-1 in favor of the deal.

Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts thanked regulators, and called it a "proud and exciting day" for the company, which his father, Ralph Roberts, founded in 1963.

Among other conditions, Comcast must commit to keeping an open Internet service. At the moment, it is the largest U.S. Internet service provider, and regulators want customers to be able to access all Web content.

Other key requirements are intended to ensure that Comcast deal fairly with rival cable and satellite providers since it will now be the owner of major content from NBC and its various cable channels.

In other words, it will not be able to withhold content from USA or CNBC, for instance, from a competing pay-TV company.

Many of the conditions will remain in place for seven years, a longer period than regulators usually require.

As analysts and investors brace for earnings reports from more than a dozen major U.S. manufacturers over the next two weeks, they will eye revenue growth as one of the surest signs of health for the industrial sector over the next year.

Sales growth will be critical to profits this year, since major companies including General Electric Co (GE.N), United Technologies Corp (UTX.N) and 3M Co (MMM.N) will likely face rising costs of everything from copper to payroll, which they had slashed going into the recession.

Cost management will matter if the sector is to continue its strong run on Wall Street. Standard & Poor's industrials group .GSPI rose about 20 percent over the past year, the second-biggest gain in the broad S&P 500 index .SPX after the S&P consumer discretionary group .GSPD, which rose almost 26 percent.

"From a top-line, revenue side, we're going to see some modest expansion there," said Peter Klein, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management, in Cleveland, Ohio. "This is what I'm sort of tuning my ear to hear. And if we don't hear it, then maybe some of this ebullience that we've seen in the industrials since this summer will flatten out."

For a related graphic click: r.reuters.com/res86r

FOREIGN DEMAND CRITICAL

Demand outside the United States will be critical to that momentum. More manufacturing executives expect their shipments outside the United States to rise in the coming months, while demand at home eases, according to a Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI survey released last week.

The group's overall composite index of manufacturing activity slipped to 75 from 77, but remained well above the 50 market that separates growth from contraction.

"It suggests maybe a slightly slowing rate of recovery, but still continued expansion," said Donald Norman, an economist with the Arlington, Virginia-based group.

China, a major area of focus for big industrial operations including Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), Honeywell International Inc (HON.N) and Rockwell Automation Inc (ROK.N), may be the subject of more interest than usual this quarter in the wake of a Wednesday summit meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

COST PRESSURES

Higher raw material prices, particularly for copper, will be a major drag on profit growth this year, and leave executives looking for ways to raise their selling prices on heavy equipment.

"The bigger challenge this year is to stem the margin impact of commodity inflation and seeing what they are able to pass through on pricing, while at the same time leveraging the top-line growth they're starting to show," said Steven Winoker, an analyst at Bernstein Research in New York.

"We're getting back into a more positive cycle and they're starting to spend again," he added.

* Apple shares will be in the spotlight after the company said Chief Executive Steve Jobs was taking medical leave for the third time since 2004, reviving fears over the long-term future of the iPhone- and iPad-maker and sending the company's stock traded in Frankfurt tumbling more than 8 percent.

* On the earnings front, investors were bracing for results from a number of companies including Apple, Citigroup (C.N) and IBM (IBM.N).

* Goldman Sachs (GS.N) said it will limit its private placement of shares of social networking site Facebook to investors outside the United States, citing "intense media coverage."

* Brewing giant SABMiller (SAB.L) beat forecasts with a 3 percent rise in beer volumes in the last three months boosted by growth in Africa and Asia offsetting a fall in Colombia, hit by the heaviest rain for 50 years.

* European planemaker Airbus (EAD.PA) celebrated a surprise win in the annual orders race against Boeing (BA.N) with the 10,000th plane sale in its 40-year history, part of a $5 billion order from Virgin America. Separately, Boeing Co (BA.N) resumed certification tests of its 787 Dreamliner on Monday for the first time since an in-flight electrical fire in November knocked those trials off schedule.

* GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) will record a legal charge of $3.4 billion for the fourth quarter, effectively wiping out its profit, as it settles further claims related to Avandia and sales practices.

* South African retailer Massmart's (MSMJ.J) shareholders have accepted a takeover by U.S. group Wal-Mart (WMT.N), setting up the world's largest retailer for a potential battle with local unions.

* European stocks were up 0.7 percent in morning trade, led by mining shares after Rio Tinto's (RIO.L) output figures pleased investors and as metal prices climbed.

* The S&P 500 ended a seventh straight week of gains with a banks-led rally amid healthy volume after encouraging financial results from JPMorgan.

* The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI added 55.48 points, or 0.47 percent, to 11,787.38. The Standard & Poor's 500 .SPX rose 9.48 points, or 0.74 percent, to 1,293.24. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 20.01 points, or 0.73 percent, to 2,755.30.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

The world's most valuable technology company announced on Monday that Jobs would take a medical leave of absence without specifying a return date or detailing Jobs' condition, leaving investors in an information vacuum.

The surprise announcement -- made on a U.S. market holiday -- dragged Apple shares down more than 6 percent in European trading. They are up 62 percent in the past 12 months on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

"Steve Jobs is seen by the market to be a major force in Apple's strategic direction," said Richard Windsor, global technology specialist at Nomura. "If his pancreatic cancer has returned, one could be quite worried."

Jobs' latest leave comes nearly two years after he took a six-month break to undergo a liver transplant. He also took time off after pancreatic surgery in 2004.

Apple has not dwelt on Jobs' health, and Jobs himself asked for respect for his privacy in a memo to employees made public on Monday.

In Jobs' absence, it will be up to chief operating officer Tim Cook to decide how much to tell investors about the absent chief executive, and what Apple plans to do with its $50 billion-plus pile of cash and investments.

Less of a showman than Jobs, the 50-year old Alabama native is not expected to make any grand pronouncements. But he is regarded as a safe pair of hands for the company, having stood in for Jobs successfully twice before.

In Asia, tech shares gained, helped by hopes of a recovery in chip prices and expectations that nimble firms may slow the runaway success of Apple after the news that Jobs would take medical leave.

Still, analysts said the impact on Apple's operations and its Asian rivals and partners should be limited in the short-term given a strong product line-up.

"Apple's roadmap is all set and its iPhone 5 is ready to go, leaving little room for competitors to cut into its share," said Bonnie Chang, an analyst at Yuanta Securities in Taipei.

HUGE HOLIDAY SEASON

Aside from Jobs' health, the company is entering 2011 on a roll, a cash-generating machine with surging sales across its product lines, even as it confronts rivals determined to halt its stunning run of success.

Wall Street is expecting Apple's quarterly revenue to swell more than 50 percent to more than $24 billion after a bumper holiday shopping season. That would be a sparkling performance for a company of any size, much less one with a market value above $300 billion.

Apple's advantages are well-documented: the global spread of the iPhone, which is expected to sell more than 60 million units this year; the rise of the iPad, which single-handedly created the tablet computing market; and continued strong growth from the resurgent Mac line of computers.