GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks gain, U.S. bonds slip on jobless data, earnings

* U.S. stocks edge up along with MSCI (NYSE: MSCI - news) world index

* Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) shares hit record high

* Russian debt insurance costs rise on EU sanctions

* U.S. homebuilders down after housing data (Updates with U.S. oil settlement, adds gold)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, July 24 (Reuters) - Global stock markets inched higher while U.S. debt prices fell on Thursday following unexpectedly low U.S. weekly jobless claims and stronger-than-expected U.S. earnings.

The benchmark S&P 500 index hit a record high for a third straight day, buoyed by data showing initial jobless claims in the world's largest economy dropped to their lowest in more than eight years.

"The lower-than-expected U.S. initial jobless claims has made people focus on the improving labor market situation," said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist, at CRT Capital in Stamford, Connecticut.

But data showing sales of new U.S. single-family homes fell by the biggest amount since July 2013 offset some of the positive news. The stock of homebuilder D.R. Horton, which also reported results, sank 11.1 percent to $22.05, while the PHLX Housing Index was down 2.9 percent.

The biggest boost to the S&P 500 came from Facebook, which shot up 5.5 percent to $75.21 and hit a record of $76.74, a day after reporting a surge in mobile advertising revenue.

General Motors (NYSE: GM - news) dropped 3.8 percent to $35.99 after reporting a much smaller-than-expected quarterly profit.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 5.81 points or 0.03 percent, to 17,092.44, the S&P 500 gained 2.67 points or 0.13 percent, to 1,989.68 and the Nasdaq Composite added 3.26 points or 0.07 percent, to 4,476.95.

MSCI's All-World Index was up 0.1 percent, while European stocks ended up 0.5 percent.

Data showed the services sector across the 18-member euro zone performed better than any of the 39 economists polled by Reuters had forecast.

Russian debt insurance costs rose after European Union leaders proposed sanctions on Russian banks which are majority-owned by the government. Those measures were proposed after a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed over Ukraine last week, killing 298, possibly by a missile furnished by Russia.

In the foreign exchange market, the euro fell to an eight-month low of $1.3448 on the EBS trading system before rebounding to a session high of $1.34855. The single currency was last $1.3465, up 0.02 percent from Wednesday's U.S. close.

Ten-year U.S. Treasuries were down 12/32 in price to yield 2.507 percent. The yield hit a peak of 2.518 percent, the highest since July 18.

Crude oil prices ran into renewed selling on a weaker demand outlook in Europe. Brent crude for September delivery fell 96 cents to $107.07 a barrel. U.S. crude lost $1.05 to settle at $102.07.

Gold (Other OTC: GDCWF - news) hit its lowest level in a month, with spot gold last down 1.1 percent at $1,289.6 an ounce. (Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn, Marc Jones and Anirban Nag in London, Wayne Cole in Sydney, Richard Leong, Rodrigo Campos and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish, Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)