Stock markets around the world staged a recovery in 2009 since March, when most of them hit their lows for the year.
It was a year in which governments and central banks around the world took extraordinary measures to get their economies growing.
In London, the FTSE saw its biggest annual gain since 1997, rising 22% over the course of the year. Germany’s Dax rose 23% while France’s Cac added 22.%.
Standing back and looking at the post-war equity markets, and the US in particular, we seem to be a fair way into a long-term bear market – 10 years, to be exact
Jamie Robertson, Business presenter, BBC World News
“The global financial system stabilised, helping avert a depression, as most asset classes began to feel the effects of extraordinary and coordinated policy intervention by the second quarter… The world economy is back from the brink,” said Geoffrey Yu, an analyst at UBS.
It is worth bearing in mind, though, that over the past decade the FTSE, the Dax and the Cac have all fallen more than 20%.
