US Feb NFIB Business Optimism Index up to 90.8 vs 88.9 (Jan)

Financial markets have lifted as confidence in the global growth outlook has firmed, however late 2012 data for world exports and industrial output remained soft, showing modest expansion in activity at best. GDP fell at the end of last year in Western Europe and Japan, was flat in the USA, while the pace of growth in some of the biggest emerging market economies was sluggish by their standards.