U.S. and European data and company results offered hope the global recession had eased but still showed the West lagging Asia, where two major central banks flagged the need to rein in emergency stimulus.
After a mixed bag of numbers on both sides of the Atlantic this week, one of the earliest signposts to U.S. industry showed the factory sector in New York state nearly pulled out of contraction in July, the highest reading in more than a year.
European car sales also showed a first monthly increase in over a year thanks to incentives for scrapping cars in some major economies, though analysts cautioned that was also thanks to disastrous numbers a year earlier.
But despite signs that Britain's recession may have bottomed out, data on Wednesday showed unemployment hit its highest point since January 1997 in the three months to May.
Boosted by strong corporate results, world stock markets gained for a third day, yet markets were still far from convinced that the West is on a firm path to recovery from the deepest recession in decades.
"The market is prepared to shake off weak economic data, preferring to focus on consensus-breaking results and upbeat outlooks from corporates," said Henk Potts, equity strategist at Barclays Stockbrokers.
The outlook for the Asian economy is more upbeat.
The Bank of Japan on Wednesday extended its crisis funding support for businesses for another three months, but Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said improvements in markets had led it to stop short of a six-month extension into the new year.
China's central bank also signalled concern over the amount of money coursing through its economy, taking the latest of a series of small steps to tighten policy by telling banks they would have to buy special bills in September.
"Financial conditions are improving as a trend. But at present, we decided it was appropriate to maintain the steps," Shirakawa told a news conference.
"If conditions improve further, it might be appropriate to end or review the various steps at the end of the year."
OUTLOOK SPLIT
Many hopes for a global revival have centred on China, where lavish government stimulus spending appears to be having the desired effect on an economy clobbered by a drop-off in trade as the developed world slid into recession last year.
A Reuters poll on Wednesday suggested the world's third-largest economy was on track to reach its 8 percent target for growth this year, while Asia's worst hit economies Singapore and Taiwan would see a sharp turnaround in 2010.
"We have already seen a fair bit of buying into risk over the past few weeks and people are feeling a bit better about the economy," said Chris Kimber, client adviser at Bell Potter Securities in Australia.
Other data on Wednesday showed a steep drop in fuel costs drove down euro zone consumer prices for the first time year-on-year in June. That should allow interest rates to remain low and hand consumers some more buying power.
But Hennes & Mauritz, the world's third-biggest clothing retailer, reported a bigger than expected 5 percent year-on-year fall in sales at stores in June, suggesting fears over jobs are crimping consumer spending.
In Britain, although data showed unemployment was still on the increase, the number of people signing on to claim jobless benefit rose by much less than expected last month.
BEATING FORECASTS
Asian tech shares jumped in response to Intel results on Tuesday that blew past forecasts. Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and flat screen TVs, rose more than 5 percent and leading European shares rose 1.7 percent in morning trade.
Results for U.S. bank Goldman Sachs on Tuesday also showed an extraordinary turnaround from the near meltdown in the banking sector since Lehman Brothers collapsed last September.
Those results are not necessarily a preview of what to expect from all the banks, but the improvement comes at a time when policymakers are increasingly riled at banks' failure to pass on much of the extra cash pumped into the sector.
"Banks are in a delicate situation, I understand this well, but we need lenders to be more generous in offering credit because this is what supports the economy," the minister in charge of France's stimulus, Patrick Devedjian, said.
"Of course, we are in a crisis, of course it has not ended, but at the same time, a number of positive signs have appeared almost everywhere," he said.
