GLOBAL MARKETS-Lingering inflation keeps Wall Street mixed to end brutal quarter

(Updates prices for U.S. morning trading)

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U.S. stocks make timid recovery as brutal Q3 comes to an end

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Dollar flat, sterling ticks up after week of turmoil

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Treasury yields little changed

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Oil prices retreat

By Lawrence Delevingne and Elizabeth Howcroft

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Wall Street and global stocks made little ground on Friday, with government bond yields and the dollar holding near recent peaks, as higher-than-expected inflation continued to weigh on markets.

Fresh personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index data, tracked by the U.S. Federal Reserve as it considers more interest rate hikes, showed a rise of 0.3% last month after dipping 0.1% in July. Euro zone inflation also hit a record high of 10% in September, surpassing forecasts for a 9.7% rise, flash inflation data showed.

Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard said on Friday the U.S. central bank would need to maintain higher interest rates for some time as part of its effort tame inflation and must guard against lowering rates prematurely.

Quincy Krosby, Chief Global Strategist for LPL Financial in Charlottesville, Virginia, said the new price index data "did little to assuage fears that the campaign to curtail inflation is working as quickly as hoped by the market".

She added that end of the quarter re-balancing "will play a significant role in how the market ends a particularly volatile week".

U.S. stocks ticked up in choppy trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.39% to 29,338.84, the S&P 500 gained 0.77%, to 3,668.5 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.26% to 10,872.30.

The action Friday caps a week of global market turmoil in which stocks and currency markets already rocked by recession fears were sapped by dollar strength.

Asian shares fell earlier on Friday, on track for their largest monthly loss since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

European shares saw some recovery, although they remained on track for a third consecutive quarter of losses as markets worried about the impact on global growth of central banks hiking interest rates to counter inflation. Europe's STOXX 600 was last up about 1%.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, rose 0.3%.

David Madden, market analyst at Equiti Capital, said a pullback in government bond yields enabled stocks to edge up, but this was unlikely to be the start of a longer recovery.

"The big picture hasn't changed: yields are an upward trend, inflation is still really high, interest rates are set to continue on the path of higher rates," he said.

European government bond yields fell, with Germany's 10-year yield down 7 basis points at 2.134%, compared to Wednesday's peak of 2.352%, which was an 11-year high.

Some U.S. Treasury yields also pulled back on Friday. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was down 0.3 basis points to 3.744% and the two-year U.S. Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was down 0.3 basis points at 4.167%. 30-year Treasury bonds rose 2.7 basis points to 3.720%.

Currency markets calmed, with the dollar index down 0.2% on the day after hitting a 20-year high on Wednesday. The dollar index has risen about 17% this year.

The British pound, which had been driven to all-time lows by a combination of dollar strength and the government's plans for tax cuts funded by borrowing, rose 0.3% on the day. It is still on track for its worst quarter versus the dollar since 2008 .

The Bank of England would not raise interest rates before its next scheduled policy announcement on Nov. 3 despite a plummet in sterling but would make big moves in November and December, a Reuters poll predicted.

European Central Bank policymakers have also voiced more support for a large rate hike. COMMODITIES U.S. crude recently fell 1.43% to $80.07 per barrel and Brent was at $87.92, down 0.64% on the day. Oil had been on track for its first weekly gain in five on Friday, underpinned by the possibility that OPEC+ will agree to cut crude output

Gold prices, which gained on Friday as the dollar weakened, were still on course for their worst quarter since March last year as central banks worldwide stick with aggressive monetary policies. Spot gold added 0.8% to $1,673.86 an ounce; U.S. gold futures gained 0.86% to $1,672.70 an ounce.

(Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne in Boston and Elizabeth Howcroft in London. Editing by Mark Potter, Angus MacSwan, William Maclean and Alex Richardson)