World Markets Up Modestly Despite US Jobs Cheer

"Today's unemployment numbers have added further weight to the argument that the pace of the economic slowdown may well be easing, but as far as stock markets are concerned, it looks like a large chunk of these potential green shoots are already reflected in the price," said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index.

"If markets can't stage a sustainable rally on the back of such surprise good news, then it does look as though we may well have seen the best for share prices for a while," he added.

The rally in stock markets since mid-March, which has seen some of the world's major indexes in positive territory for 2009, has been fueled by a run of better than expected economic data, particularly out of the U.S. As stocks usually start rallying 6 to 9 months before actual recovery emerges in the official data, investors have bet that the massive sell-off in markets during the financial crisis was overdone.

During the stock market rally since March, the dollar has suffered as investors piled into riskier assets. The response to the payrolls figure was somewhat different as investors looked at the U.S. as the most likely place in the world to emerge first and strongest from the global economic downturn.