* Wall Street set to follow Europe and Asia higher
* UK stocks, sterling rise as May set to be confirmed as PM
* Japan shares rise 4 pct after Abe landslide poll victory
* Safe-haven yen falls versus dollar, pound dips before BoE
meets
* Oil falls on economic worries, euro zone yields near
record lows
By Nigel Stephenson
LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) - Global stocks rallied on Monday
as a combination of electoral success for Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe and the emergence of a sole candidate to
succeed David Cameron as British prime minister reduced
political uncertainty even as markets looked forward to more
stimulus from central banks.
UK shares and, briefly, sterling gained after interior
minister Theresa May's only rival withdrew. The Conservative
Party said it would formally confirm May, who campaigned for
Britain to stay in the EU - before the June 23 referendum that
yielded a majority "Leave" vote - as premier soon, ending a
contest that had been due to run until September.
"We basically got ourselves nine extra weeks of time to seek
certainty - that's recognised by the market," said Stephen Jen,
who runs SLJ Macro Partners in London.
Wall Street looked set to follow European and Asian markets
higher, according to index futures ESc1 1YMc1 .
MSCI's all-country world stocks index .MIWD00000PUS nudged
higher and was last up 0.6 percent.
Sterling GBP= , which had earlier been down against the
dollar, briefly topped $1.30 before retreating to $1.2985, up
0.3 percent on the day.
Britain's referendum wrought turmoil in global markets,
prompted forecasts of lower global growth and raised prospects
of further stimulus from major central banks.
However, stocks were already higher on Monday, still lifted
by Friday's forecast-beating U.S. jobs data, and by the
anticipation of stimulus measures.
Europe's STOXX 600 index .STOXX rose 1.0 percent, pulled
higher by a more than 6 percent gain for German steelmaker
ThyssenKrupp TKAG.DE after it said it was in talks with Tata
Steel TISC.NS about sector consolidation.
The index is down about 10 percent this year and still 3
percent below levels reached before the Brexit vote.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 gained 1
percent and Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE was up 0.9 percent on
Monday. British housebuilders, whose shares are among the
hardest hit since the referendum, were standout gainers after
May's path to the premiership was cleared.
For Reuters new Live Markets blog on European and UK stock
markets see reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageId=livemarkets
Tokyo's Nikkei index .N225 rose nearly 4 percent, its
biggest daily percentage gain since early February, after the
victory in Sunday's election to parliament's upper house by
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition.
"He won (the election) in a landslide and immediately
announced that he would add further fiscal stimulus - that is,
to continue Abenomics and try to succeed in his aim of bringing
the Japanese economy back to life, as well as increasing
inflation," Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) currency strategist Thulan Nguyen said
in Frankfurt. "That is causing the yen slide at the moment."
Chinese shares rose as investors figured sub-par inflation
numbers raised the prospect of more economic stimulus -
something market participants are anticipating from several
major central banks around the world in coming months.
The broadest MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS jumped 1.9 percent to a one-month top.
The dollar rose 0.2 percent on Monday against a basket of
major currencies .DXY and strengthened by 1.9 percent against
the yen JPY= , which is viewed as a safe investment in times of
market turbulence. The euro EUR= was flat at $1.1053.
SOOTHED
Concern over the impact of the Brexit vote has driven
low-risk euro zone government bond yields to a series of record
lows. Dutch 10-year yields NL10YT=TWEB turned negative for the
first time on Monday.
German 10-year yields DE10YT=TWEB edged higher on the day
on the latest political developments in Britain, but at minus
0.17 percent were still within range of last week's record
trough of minus 0.204 percent.
"It's clear investors are expecting more ECB action with
Brexit likely to have a negative impact on the economy," said
Cyril Regnat, fixed income strategist at Natixis.
Brent crude oil LCOc1 fell to its lowest in two months
after the Asian data and as U.S. producers added rigs for the
fifth week in six. It last traded at $46.43 a barrel, down 35
cents.
Copper prices CMCU3 rose 1 percent with risk appetite, and
nickel CMNI3 topped $10,000 a tonne on mining suspensions
imposed in the Philippines over environmental concerns.
Gold XAU= , which touched a two-year high last week on
Brexit concerns, fell 0.6 percent to $1,358 an ounce.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)