it’s going to be a good year! :-)

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rallied 0.8 percent as of 11:12 a.m. in Tokyo, climbing for the third time in four days. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.2 percent. The yen weakened 0.2 percent to 108.44 per euro and New Zealand’s dollar appreciated 0.4 percent to 82.16 U.S. cents. Oil traded near the lowest level in a week in New York.

U.S. retail sales rose 1.1 percent in February, the most in five months, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, reducing the likelihood the Federal Reserve will add to stimulus measures today. The Bank of Japan is also forecast to keep policy unchanged today. European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said he was confident EU leaders would reach an agreement on increasing the size of its crisis- fighting funds this month.

“We’re starting to feel more confident and it’s going to be a good year, particularly in equities,” Kirk West, Sydney- based executive director of international investments at Principal Global Investors, manager of about $215 billion in assets, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “‘In the U.S., it’s all about jobs. Jobs growth has continued and will ultimately lead to further consumption and that’s a virtuous cycle.”

‘Powerful Recovery’

“The powerful recovery in earnings thus far has allowed market averages to rise without pushing the P/E higher,” David Joy, the Boston-based chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial Inc., said in a Feb. 21 e-mail. His firm oversees $600 billion. “Many investors are either not convinced that this price rally and earnings recovery are for real, or they simply do not care, having been burned too badly in the downturn.”

U.S. gross domestic product expanded an average 2.4 percent a quarter in the 2 1/2 years since the recession ended in 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The world’s largest economy hasn’t had a smaller post-recession recovery rate since at least the 1940s, the data show. In the 2003 bull market, GDP rose 2.7 percent on average, before the S&P 500 surged 102 percent. For the 1982 rally, the rate was 5.7 percent. Equities more than tripled in that cycle.

If you want your retirement money; your investment money to do better => Vote Democrat!!!