Oil steadied on Thursday after taking a wild ride.

NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) - Stock markets around the world bounced back on Thursday, with U.S.

gains led by merger activity and earnings optimism that offset concerns over an escalating U.S. trade battle with China.

Metals also rebounded, with bargain-hunting investors scrambling to buy, while oil prices flailed around after clawing back big losses from the day before.

Stocks on Wall Street got a boost from spacer spools adapter spools technology and industrial shares. CA Inc jumped 18.1 percent after chipmaker Broadcom announced a surprise $18.9 billion deal to buy the U.S. business software company.

There was also some relief for markets as U.S. President Donald Trump came out of a meeting of the NATO military alliance in Belgium with a positive assessment after a string of earlier barbs.

"We had a fantastic meeting at the end," Trump told reporters. "Very unified, very strong, no problem."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 196.76 points, or 0.8 percent, to 24,897.21, the S&P 500 gained 20.69 points, or 0.75 percent, to 2,794.71 and the Nasdaq Composite added 97.17 points, or 1.26 percent, to 7,813.78.

"While markets have typically reacted negatively to any escalation on trade, the overall impact has been relatively modest under the circumstances which suggests investors are far from panic mode right now," Craig Erlam, Oanda senior buy Wellhead market analyst, said in a note.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 0.78 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.52 percent.

Positive U.S. jobless data on Wednesday provided a buy Wellhead market boost, with labor buy Wellhead market conditions remaining robust in early July.

In addition, a consumer prices report indicated the underlying trend continued to point to a steady buildup of inflation pressure that could keep the Federal Reserve on a path of gradual interest rate hikes.

The inflation data also boosted the U.S. dollar, which rose to a six-month high against the Japanese yen.

In part, currency investors may see positive implications for the dollar from a trade war, as the United States would be better equipped to weather a slowdown in trade than other major economies.

The Japanese yen weakened 0.40 percent versus the greenback at 112.48 per dollar.

Oil had a wild ride since the prior session, when prices had their biggest one-day fall in two years. But they steadied on Thursday despite a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the world's oil supply cushion "might be stretched to the limit" due to oil rig flanges gulf coast production losses.