* Investors reverse previous session's trades
* Global stocks rise, yen slips, oil rebounds
* Wall Street set for gains
* Japan sees weaker economy
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) - World stocks rose on Wednesday
after recent declines, and Wall Street looked set to open higher
with better-than-expected earnings from JPMorgan as a backdrop.
European stocks gained more than 1 percent.
Oil prices firmed as investors sought fresh opportunities to
bet on riskier assets.
The Japanese yen fell after a brief show of strength in the
previous session. The government downgraded its assessment of
the economy for the first time in six months to reflect last
month's devastating earthquake and tsunami and their aftermath.
Brent crude oil was above $121, halting a two-day decline,
on fears that the Libya conflict could settle into a bloody
stalemate, while a sudden disruption in Kuwaiti oil exports due
to bad weather boosted sentiment.
Overall, Wednesday was mostly a mirror image of Tuesday,
reflecting investors' current tendency to be risk-on one day and
risk-off the next.
Surveys suggest that investors are willing to take riskier
bets at the moment but are being constrained by concerns that
growth in the global economy and, possibly, corporate earnings
are vulnerable.
"The overriding theme at the moment is that the data we're
seeing simply isn't conducive to building much confidence in the
market," said Cameron Peacock, analyst at IG Markets.
World stocks as measured by MSCI <.MIWD00000PUS> were up
half a percent for a 4.5 percent year-to-date gain. Much of the
drive came from emerging markets <.MSCIEF>, which gained more
than two-thirds of a percent.
Emerging markets have returned to favour in the past few
weeks after a hiatus.
Japan's Nikkei <> rose 0.9 percent on the day in thin
volume. Analysts suggested the full impact of the country's
disasters, as outlined in the government's new assessment, was
still not clear.
A Bank of America-Merrill Lynch fund manager poll on Tuesday
showed investors rapidly cutting their exposure to Japanese
equities, although some big firms have been buying.
In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 <> rose 1.02 percent,
rebounding from its biggest one-day fall in a month on Tuesday.
YEN WEAKER
The yen slipped broadly while the euro hit a new 15-month
high against the dollar at $1.4521 on EBS trading platform.
The prospect of further interest rate rises by the European
Central Bank while monetary policy stays loose in the U.S. and
Japan continued to buoy the single currency.
The dollar <JPY=> was up 0.6 percent at 84.08 yen <JPY=>
after sliding more than 1.2 percent on Tuesday for its biggest
one-day percentage drop in four months.
"If there is no pullback in oil and other commodity prices
then I think going forward the yen will be very vulnerable,"
said Niels Christensen, currency strategist at Nordea in
Copenhagen.
On European bond markets, Bund futures handed back some of
the gains from a rally in the previous session.
(Additional reporting by Jessica Mortimer and Atul Prakash;
editing by Stephen Nisbet)
