Investors start 2010 in bullish mood

Wall Street looked set to open the year higher, but the dollar was weaker against a basket of major currencies and government bonds sold off.
MSCI's all-country world stock index was up more than half a percent, slightly below 2009 highs but around where they were in October 2008 just after US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed to trigger financial turmoil.
Other indexes are beyond that mark, with MSCI's emerging market benchmark and its Asian Pacific stocks ex-Japan gauge both at 17-month highs.
Investors were essentially adding to last year's bets that the global economy will improve and that riskier assets such as stocks were oversold when fears of a banking meltdown swept the market.
MSCI' main index gained 31.52 percent last year, the Asian one 68.32 percent and the emerging market benchmark 74.5 percent.
"There is a generally a feeling of modest optimism at the start of the year," said Andrew Milligan, head of global strategy at Standard Life Investment. "We are looking forward generally to a year of positive growth in most countries and good profits growth for most companies."
He added, however, that investors would need to be selective; Kazinform refers to China Daily.
See www.chinadaily.com.cn for full version