stocks set for bull market

“I’m very bullish on the market,” Laurence D. Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Hong Kong today. “I don’t have a view that the world is going to fall apart, so you need to take on more risk. You need to overcome all this noise and there are great values in equities.”
Fear Index

While geo-political risks have risen, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Syria’s bloody crackdown, investors are taking their cue from policy makers who are driving down interest rates and flooding the world with cash to prop up their economies. The VIX, a measure of equity volatility known as the “fear index,” fell to 17.1 on Feb. 3, the lowest level since July, according to the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

-Bloomberg

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 0.4 percent, the first gain in three days, as banks and mining companies rallied. Portuguese lenders Banco Comercial Portugues SA, Banco Espirito Santo SA and Banco BPI SA all surged more than 11 percent. Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc climbed 2.4 percent as the maker of Nurofen painkillers and Dettol handwash said 2012 sales will increase at a faster pace than the industry.

Toyota climbed 5 percent in Tokyo trading.

The S&P 500 closed at a seven-month high yesterday. Walt Disney Co., the largest U.S. entertainment company by market value, slipped 1.8 percent in German trading as first-quarter sales missed analyst estimates.