Stocks in Europe and Asia rose, trimming last year’s record slump in the MSCI World Index, as investors speculated governments will step up efforts to revive the global economy and lower oil prices lifted retailers. U.S. index futures gained. Rio Tinto Group increased 6.4 percent, leading a rally in raw-material producers, Europe’s worst performing industry group in 2008. Carrefour SA added 3.3 percent on optimism lower energy prices will boost consumer spending. Samsung Electronics Co. climbed 4.2 percent as South Korea’s president pledged to counter the economic slowdown. The MSCI World jumped 3.6 percent this week, extending its advance to 20 percent since Nov. 20. Stocks have climbed as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama pledged to stimulate growth with the biggest infrastructure investment since the 1950s and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to as low as zero percent to combat the worst global financial crisis in seven decades. “We’re turning the page,” said Jacques Porta, a fund manager at Ofi Patrimoine in Paris, which oversees $615 million. “We’ve left the page of panic and deep recession. Expectations of Obama and his plan are enormous.” The MSCI World added 0.6 percent to 925.25 at 11:41 a.m. in London. The gauge of 23 developed countries dropped 42 percent in 2008 as credit-related losses and writedowns at financial firms that topped $1 trillion pushed the U.S., Europe and Japan into the first simultaneous recessions since World War II. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.5 percent, indicating the benchmark index for U.S. equities may advance after posting the biggest annual decline since the Great Depression. Europe, India Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index climbed 2.3 percent as Siemens AG advanced. The MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index increased 1.1 percent. ZTE Corp. led gains among telephone- related shares after China said it will issue licenses to providers of high-speed services. India’s benchmark stock index rose to a two-week high, led by ICICI Bank Ltd., after the government said it will announce measures today to counter the economic slowdown. The country’s central bank after the close of trading cut interest rates for the fourth time in less than three months, extending the steepest set of reductions since 2000. The U.S.’s S&P 500 ended every day of 2008 below its closing level of 2007, the first time since 1977 that the gauge never produced a profit, according to Bespoke Investment Group LLC. The S&P 500 lost 38.5 percent in 2008, the steepest annual drop since 1937. Banks, Miners All 19 industry groups in Europe’s Stoxx 600 slid at least 18 percent in 2008 as the measure tumbled 46 percent for the worst annual decline on record. Gauges of banks and miners both retreated 65 percent as losses at financial firms topped $1 trillion and the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials dropped a record 36 percent. Rio Tinto, the world’s third-largest mining company, added 6.4 percent to 1,586 pence today. Copper traded at $3,085 a metric ton in London. The metal traded at less than $2,940 per ton as stock markets in Europe closed on Dec. 31. Carrefour, Europe’s largest retailer, rose 3.3 percent to 28.42 euros. DSG International Plc, Britain’s biggest consumer- electronics retailer, gained 2.9 percent to 18 pence. Oil fell below $42 a barrel in New York, extending its worst yearly drop, on concern that a global economic contraction will limit fuel demand. Crude for February delivery dropped as much as 7.9 percent to $41.08 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. South Korea Samsung, the world’s biggest computer-memory chipmaker, added 4.2 percent to 470,000 won. Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea’s largest automaker, gained 5.6 percent to 41,700 won. “We won’t waste a minute or a second in examining economic conditions every day and coming up with measures,” South Korea’s President Lee Myung Bak said today in a new-year address televised live. “Most of all, we have to ensure money flow in the markets first.” In Hong Kong, ZTE, China’s second-biggest maker of phone- network equipment, climbed 11 percent to HK$22.50. China Telecom Corp., the nation’s biggest fixed-line phone company, gained 6.2 percent to HK$3.07. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which regulates the country’s telecommunications industry, said on Dec. 31 that it will “prudently” award permits to provide high-speed wireless services. India Cuts Rates ICICI, India’s second-largest bank, rose 1.5 percent to 471.25 rupees. The Reserve Bank of India cut the repurchase rate to 5.5 percent from 6.5 percent and the reverse-repurchase rate to 4 percent from 5 percent, it said in a statement in Mumbai. Siemens added 3 percent to 54.27 euros. The company’s chief executive officer Peter Loescher told Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung newspaper that it may acquire companies if it makes strategic sense. European media stocks climbed after Citigroup Inc. raised its recommendation on the industry to “overweight,” saying favorable currency moves may boost earnings. The broker highlighted Vivendi SA and WPP Group Plc among their top picks within the group. Vivendi, France’s biggest media company, added 1.7 percent to 23.67 euros. WPP, the world’s second-largest advertising company, gained 1 percent to 406.5 pence. Ghana’s Rally Only three of 89 major indexes tracked by Bloomberg posted gains in 2008, as equities lost $29 trillion in value. Ghana’s All-Share Index was the best performer, surging 60 percent. An offshore oil discovery and government spending on roads and other projects lifted stocks in the country sandwiched between Togo and Ivory Coast. Banks and financial-services companies accounted for the Stoxx 600’s six biggest declines in 2008. Last year’s slump left the index valued at 9.3 times profit, compared with an average ratio of 26 since 2002, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Brewers and tobacco growers boosted by takeovers as well as discount retailers were about the only winners in global equities for 2008. Anheuser-Busch Cos. jumped 31 percent after InBev NV agreed to acquire the owner of Budweiser beer to create the world’s biggest brewer. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the biggest retailer, and restaurant operator McDonald’s Corp. were the only two companies in the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average that rose. GM, VIX General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, climbed 15 percent to $3.67 in Germany today after receiving $4 billion in initial rescue loans from the U.S. Treasury to help it avoid collapse. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, posted a 78 percent gain to 40 in 2008. The so-called VIX, a measure of how much investors are paying for insurance from stock declines in the options market, had never exceeded 50 before October. Its close of 80.86 on Nov. 20 was the highest in its 19-year history. “The mindset may be that the turmoil of 2008 is now behind us and that 2009, although not set to be great, needs to start with a bang,” said Jimmy Yates, a dealer at CMC Markets in London. “With many traders still not back at their desks until Monday we will yet again see some thin volumes and maybe a degree of volatility.”

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