* Yen sees biggest daily jump since January
* World stocks climb after three straight declines
* Oil prices rebound after selloff
NEW YORK, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The Japanese yen surged on Thursday as monetary policymakers hinted the Bank of Japan (BOJ) may shift away from its ultra-low interest rate plan and a gauge of global stocks rose after three straight declines as investors assessed the latest round of U.S. labor market data.
The yen surged 2.27% against the greenback, its biggest one-day jump since Jan. 12, at 144.03 per dollar after Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda added to speculation that the central bank could move away from negative rates by saying policy management would "become even more challenging from the year-end and heading into next year" and indicated several options of what could be on the horizon.
The dollar index fell 0.39% at 103.73 while the euro was up 0.16% to $1.0779.
"They need to do it. What they're scared of is that what will the effect of higher rates be on their companies and banks ... so they're going to be very, very careful about that," said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments in Atlanta.
"They're going to be super slow but they've got to get there. They just keep on kind of dribbling in announcements and say, 'Yeah, we're going to get there but just not now,'" Martin added.
Markets now see about a 21% chance that the BoJ hikes rates at its final meeting of the year on December 19, according to LSEG data. Japanese government bonds also saw a sharp selloff, with yields on the 10-year Japanese government bond up 10.3 basis points, the most since July 28.
On Wall Street, U.S. stocks climbed, led by a 3% gain in communication services stocks as Google parent Alphabet rallied and the latest piece of data on the labor market showed an uptick in weekly jobless claims.
After a run of data this week confirmed some softening in the labor market, the focus will turn to Friday's government payrolls report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 25.19 points, or 0.07%, to 36,079.62, the S&P 500 gained 29.31 points, or 0.64 %, to 4,578.65 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 149.97 points, or 1.06 %, to 14,296.68.
European shares fell, stalling after a recent rally, with the STOXX 600 index down 0.29%, while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.26%, its first advance after three straight declines, its longest streak since late October.
Longer dates U.S. Treasury yields edged up, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rebounding from three-month lows ahead of the U.S. jobs report. The yield on the 10-year last rose 3 basis points to 4.148%.
The weakening of economic data and recent comments from Federal Reserve officials, including Chair Jerome Powell, have heightened expectations that the U.S. central bank has ended its interest rate hiking cycle and will begin to cut rates as soon as March.
While the market widely sees the Federal Reserve holding rates steady at its next policy meeting on Dec. 12-13, expectations for a U.S. rate cut of at least 25 basis points (bps) in March are about 63%, according to CME's FedWatch Tool, up from about 43% a week ago.
Oil prices saw a modest rebound after a sharp drop in the prior session sent crude to a six-month low, although investors remained concerned about waning demand in the United States and China.
U.S. crude ticked up 0.56% to $69.77 a barrel. Brent crude advanced to $74.46 per barrel, up 0.22% percent on the day.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Will Dunham)
