* World stocks slip as year-end nears
* Wall Street set for decline at open
* Dollar slightly stronger
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - World stocks slipped and the
dollar was stable on Wednesday as investors wound down for the
year after booking stellar gains in a recovery rally stretching
back to March.
Wall Street looked set to open down.
Japan's Nikkei <> slipped 0.9 percent on in its final
2009 session, but still banked a 19 percent gain for the year
after recovering the bulk of the losses suffered since the
collapse of U.S. bank Lehman Brothers last year.
In Europe, where some bourses will still be open on
Thursday, the FTSEurofirst 300 <> was down 0.5 percent,
but still looking at annual gains of around 25 percent.
"The business for the year has been done and unless we have
any unexpected announcements the market will not move much in
either direction until the New Year," said Howard Wheeldon,
strategist at BGC Partners.
World stocks as measured by MSCI <.MIWD00000PUS> were down
0.4 percent, with an annual gain of more than 31 percent likely.
MSCI's emerging market stock benchmark <.MSCIEF> was flat.
Emerging market stocks have been among the big winners in
2009, with final gains likely to be more than 70 percent.
Discarding losses at the beginning of the year, the two MSCI
indexes have gained 75 percent and 108 percent, respectively,
from March lows.
Investors, meanwhile, are entering the new year in a
cautiously optimistic mood.
State Street said on Tuesday that its global investor
confidence index had broken a three-month decline in December,
rising to 103.9 from 100.8 in November.
A reading of 100 is neutral with anything above that
indicating increasing degrees of bullishness.
STRONGER DOLLAR
The dollar was 0.2 percent higher against a basket of major
currencies <.DXY> and hit a two-month high against the Japanese
yen.
"The dollar has been helped by year-end buying, plus we have
seen some yield hunting by Asian names which has helped
dollar/yen," said Geoffrey Yu, currency strategist at UBS in
London.
The dollar was up a third of a percent at 92.32 yen <JPY=>
and slightly stronger against the euro <EUR=> at $1.4323.
Euro zone government bonds were flat.
(Additional reporting by Joanne Frearson and Jessica Mortimer;
editing by Mike Peacock)
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