Global Stocks Signal No Loss of Better World to Come

Stocks in the world’s developed nations posted the best start to a year in two decades, a sign the global economy is poised to accelerate after contractions in Japan, the U.S. and Europe, if history is a guide.

The MSCI World Index of stocks in 24 markets rose 5 percent in January, the most since 1994, as individual investors pumped record deposits into mutual funds, U.S. profits increased for an 11th quarter, central banks kept interest rates at record lows and growth from Europe to China improved. The last two times stocks gained this much in January, world gross domestic product expanded at least three times the 2.4 percent that economists forecast for 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.