LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks rose for the fourth session in a row on Wednesday and Wall Street looked set to open higher, although European shares fell on weaker banking stocks.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 was down 0.5 percent after earlier putting in some moderate gains. Japan's Nikkei .N225 closed up 0.59 percent.
Mining stocks had lifted Europe on higher commodity prices. The commodity-tracking Reuters/Jefferies CRB .CRB index is up 8.6 percent this month.
But after a number of days of gains investors sold off financial stocks, dragging the index lower.
Despite this, the global stock market rally that began in March is proving robust although a number of investors say they want to see real signs of improvements in the world economy before making a firm commitment to riskier assets.
"Inevitably we're getting to the stage after the rally there's been that investors will question its sustainability given the questions that hang over corporate profitability and the improvement in economic data," said Henk Potts, a strategist at Barclays Wealth.
Goldman Sachs said as much in a note which said it had eased its recent pro-cyclical equity tilt. But it said it was not abandoning the position entirely.
"Expectations of economic news have adjusted and it may now take continued positive news to keep the market moving higher," it said.
Goldman said recent weakness in some U.S. data threw the focus on this week's euro zone flash PMI figures and the Philadelphia Fed's index of business activity and whether they showed upward momentum.
"As long as they do, this will reinforce our comfort that we can retest recent highs in cyclical assets," it said.
RISKIER CURRENCIES
The dollar was lower but market players were wary of taking on large positions with a dearth of economic data.
"We are still in a consolidation phase as markets try to determine whether an economic recovery would take hold later this year," said Lee Hardman, currency economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
The euro was up 0.3 percent at $1.3661. The dollar was down 0.2 percent against a basket of major currencies .DXY.
Prices of euro zone government bonds were mixed. The 10-year yield was flat at 3.430 percent and the two-year yield gained up 3 basis points at 1.3432 percent.
