Its Rally Time !!!

Bankers Pete Started At Spec Buy, C$2.35 Tgt By Jennings >BNK.T
April 1, 2009 3:46pm ET

(END) Dow Jones Newswires (201-938-5400)

04-01-09 1546ET

It's rally time

RTGAM






Global stock market indexes moved sharply higher on Thursday morning, with investors growing increasingly confident that the global economy is showing early signs of bottoming out.


U.S. stock index futures were up about an hour before markets opened, suggesting that stocks will rise at the start of trading. Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average rose 97 points. Futures for the broader S&P 500 rose 12 points.


In Europe, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up 2.6 per cent and Germany's DAX was up 4.1 per cent in afternoon trading. There, the European Central Bank cut its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point, to 1.25 per cent - half the cut that economists were expecting, which has some observers concerned that the ECB is not being sufficiently aggressive in dealing with the global recession.


In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 4.4 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 7.4 per cent in overnight trading.


The widespread gains came in spite of a disappointing look at U.S. unemployment numbers, with initial jobless claims jumping to 669,000 last week - worse than economists' expectations and marking the ninth straight week where claims have topped the 600,000-mark. The number of Americans collecting benefits rose to 5.7 million, indicating that laid-off workers are having a tough time finding jobs.


Still, investors are clearly putting more emphasis on recent data related to the U.S. housing market and manufacturing activity, which showed signs of tentative improvement. As well, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a Bloomberg News interview on Wednesday that financial markets are showing "encouraging signs" of recovering.


Meanwhile, Canadian energy stocks will likely benefit from a jump in the price of crude oil, which was part of a wider surge among commodities as investors position themselves for an economic rebound down the road. Oil jumped to $51.14 (U.S.) a barrel, up $2.75.

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