Stock markets recover in 2009

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.
US share prices also performed well. Despite a drop of about 1% of all Wall Street indexes during the last trading hour on New Year's Eve, the broad-based S&P 500 index was up nearly 25%, the strongest performance since 2003, while the Dow Jones gained 20%. The technology-driven Nasdaq index doubled those gains, rallying 45%.

However, those advances pale in comparison with China's stock market rally. The Shanghai composite jumped 80% this year.