It makes for a pleasing change. Share prices in most big economies fell in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and until March, just before America and Britain invaded Iraq, this year looked set for a repeat performance. Since then, stockmarkets have climbed: America's S&P 500 by 28%, Britain's FTSE 100 by 30%, the Ebloc 100 (an index of euro-area share prices) by 39% and Japan's Nikkei average by 41%. Although still far off their all-time highs―in Japan's case, very far off―this week many stockmarkets reached their highest points in more than a year. Enjoy the sun while it lasts; clouds still loom. In large part, the global stockmarket rally owes much to a strong run of economic statistics from America, for years the engine of global economic growth. A survey by the Institute of Supply Management published on September 2nd showed that manufacturing activity had increased. That comes on top of last week's revision to second-quarter GDP, which showed that the economy had grown at an annualised rate of 3.1%, not 2.4% as originally thought. "Just about every number that has come out in the last few weeks has been above market expectations," says Russell Jones, an economist at Lehman Brothers.
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机译：它带来了令人愉快的变化。大多数大型经济体的股价在2000年，2001年和2002年都有所下跌，直到3月，就在美国和英国入侵伊拉克之前，今年看来有望重演。从那时起，股市开始攀升：美国的标准普尔500指数上涨了28％，英国的FTSE 100上升了30％，Ebloc 100（欧元区股价指数）上升了39％，日本日经指数平均上升了41％。尽管距离日本的历史最高水平还很遥远，但在很远的地方，本周许多股市达到了一年多以来的最高点。在持续的阳光下享受阳光；乌云仍隐约可见。多年来，全球股市上涨很大程度上要归功于美国强劲的经济统计数据，这是多年来全球经济增长的引擎。供应管理协会（Institute of Supply Management）于9月2日发布的一项调查显示，制造业活动有所增加。这是在上周第二季度GDP修正之后的最高水平，后者表明经济以3.1％的年化增长率增长，而不是最初的2.4％。雷曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers）的经济学家拉塞尔•琼斯（Russell Jones）说：“过去几周来几乎所有的数字都超出了市场的预期。”
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