Wall Street indices, which jumped more than one percent on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump dialled back tariff threats on Europe over their opposition to a US takeover of Greenland, finished solidly higher again on Thursday.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent.

After focusing on Greenland, Iran and other geopolitical hotspots, "it seems like there's a lot of tailwinds back in the market," said Tom O'Shea, from Innovator Capital Management. "The economy is in a really good position to move forward."

US data releases on Thursday included a modest uptick in US third-quarter growth to 4.4 percent and a stable reading on inflation for November.

Next week's US earnings calendar is packed with results from Apple, Microsoft, Boeing and other corporate giants. There will also be a Federal Reserve monetary policy decision.

Markets had been rattled this week by the US president saying he would hammer several nations – including Germany, France, Britain and Denmark – with levies for their pushback against his grab for Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory.

But relief came on Wednesday when Trump backed down on threats to seize the Arctic island by force from ally Denmark and retracted his tariff threat.

"That was enough to trigger the so-called 'Taco' trade – 'Trump Always Chickens Out' – and markets responded with one of their strongest rallies in recent months," said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com.

But analysts said there was no guarantee that Europe-US relations had improved durably, a concern that capped gains.

"The Greenland situation may have calmed down, but there are still enough unanswered questions," said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. "It's more about financial markets regaining balance than moving into top gear."

One lesson from this week's price swings was that "financial markets fear tariffs more than geopolitical risks," noted Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB. "Trade wars are the biggest concern for markets."

The S&P 500 rose 0.55 percent, to 6,913, the Dow rose 0.6 percent, to 49,384, while the Nasdaq rose 0.9 percent, to 23,436. (AFP)