World markets rise ahead of key US jobs data (AP)

Global stock markets rose Friday amid hopes a key U.S. jobs report would show the world's largest economy was on track toward a sustainable rebound.

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Americans have missed out on almost $200 billion of stock gains as they drained money from the market in the past four years, haunted by the financial crisis.

[AP] - World stock markets rose Friday ahead of a U.S. jobs report that could help determine whether the Federal Reserve opts to introduce fresh measures to get the world's largest economy going again.

Dr. Stephen Leeb submits:Another difficult year is drawing to a close. While the stock market had rebounded very strongly from its March lows, the health of the U.S. economy is still very much in question. Of course, we will be very happy to see the worst of the recession behind us. A year ago, we were at about its worst point. For example, let’s take one metric, holiday sales. Last year, they fell 3.4 percent.