World stocks fell on Fri­day on news the US econ­o­my grew more slow­ly than ex­pect­ed in the last quar­ter of 2011, while the eu­ro rose on hopes of an im­mi­nent deal on Greece's debt that could help avert a dis­or­der­ly de­fault. The Unit­ed States, the world's biggest econ­o­my, grew at an an­nu­alised 2.8 per cent pace late last year, the fastest quar­ter­ly rate in 1-1/2 years. But it fell short of econ­o­mists' fore­cast, fu­elling wor­ries about US growth in 2012 and bets that the Fed­er­al Re­serve would need to pro­vide more help. Fed chair­man Ben Bernanke this week paint­ed a pic­ture of an econ­o­my mired in slow growth, and the Fed de­layed the tim­ing for an in­ter­est rate hike un­til at least late 2014.

He al­so sug­gest­ed the US cen­tral bank is open to buy­ing more bonds in a bid to stim­u­late bor­row­ing and in­vest­ments. "To­day's GDP num­bers, while pos­i­tive, in­di­cate that the econ­o­my is not re­al­ly do­ing all that well, and chair­man Bernanke's ex­treme pol­i­cy may be in fact what's need­ed," said Michael Shel­don, chief mar­ket strate­gist at RDM Fi­nan­cial in West­port, Con­necti­cut. The GDP da­ta pulled oil prices from their ear­ly highs and in­ten­si­fied bid­ding for safe-haven gold to­geth­er with US and Ger­man gov­ern­ment debt.

Reuters