Global stocks are poised to end the first half on a strong note, with investors looking to key US inflation data for clues on the timing of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
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Elsewhere, the yen's slide to a 38-year low fuelled expectations over intervention by the Japanese authorities to stem the weakness.
Oil was headed for a third straight weekly jump.
On the last trading day of the first half of the year, stocks hovered near recent record highs.
The AI boom on Wall Street has helped the S&P 500 blue chip index rocket nearly 15 per cent in the past six months, with hefty gains in Europe and Asia, too, as markets put aside concerns over electoral uncertainty.
There was a muted response from the dollar and US stock index futures to the US presidential debate that saw Democrat President Joe Biden stumble at times in a head-to-head with his Republican rival Donald Trump ahead of the November election.
"We see a potential Trump administration as more positive for the dollar both via looser fiscal policy and also via a more aggressive trade/tariff environment," analysts at ING bank said after the debate.
The MSCI All Country Stock Index was slightly firmer at 804.27 points on Friday, near its lifetime high of 807.17 on June 20, and up about 10.5 per cent for the year.
In Europe, the STOXX index of 600 companies gained 0.11 per cent to 513 points, helping to cement its 7 per cent gain for the year.
The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, is due before the opening bell on Wall Street on Friday.
If its annual growth slowed to 2.6 per cent in May, as economists expect, it might open the way to cuts later in 2024.
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures both ticked higher.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2 per cent and was on track to gain more than three per cent for June, its best performance since February.
Chinese markets reversed early losses to trade higher, with China's benchmark CSI300 last up 0.2 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index 0.56 per cent higher.
In currency markets, the dollar was on the front foot and was eyeing a monthly gain of nearly 1.4 per cent against a basket of currencies.
The yen tumbled to a trough of 161.27 per dollar, its weakest since 1986, and was last trading at 160.91.
The Japanese currency has fallen some 2.3 per cent this month and more than 12 per cent for the year against a resilient dollar, as it continues to be hammered by stark interest rate differentials between the US and Japan.
The latest decline in the Japanese currency has kept investors on edge, watching for possible intervention from Tokyo.
Japanese authorities spent 9.79 trillion yen ($A91.6 billion) at the end of April and in early May to push the yen up five per cent from its 34-year low of 160.245 then.
The yen's weakness has, meanwhile, been a boon for the Nikkei, which last rose 0.6 per cent.
It was eyeing a monthly gain of about three per cent.
In commodity markets, gold was a touch firmer at $US2,328 an ounce.
Brent crude oil futures rose 0.4 per cent to $US86.75 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained 0.6 per cent to $US82.23 a barrel.
Australian Associated Press
