* Stocks rise half percent to two-month high
* Hungarian stocks, forint at one-month highs
* Turk lira at over 1-mth high vs the dollar
By Alessandra Prentice
LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Emerging stocks inched up
to a fresh two-month high on Wednesday and the Hungarian forint
strengthened on hopes of an IMF aid deal though gains on most
markets were capped by worries over Greece.
Risk appetite benefited from talk the International Monetary
Fund may do more to help resolve the European debt crisis but
investors were fretting about the outcome of Greece’s talks with
creditors.
Athens is trying to break a deadlock in negotiations to
slash the country’s debt and stave off default.
The MSCI emerging equities index edged up 0.3
percent and the Thomson Reuters Emerging Europe index
rose 0.5 percent.
Emerging markets, which underperformed developed markets
last year, soared nearly 2 percent on Monday as
better-than-expected economic data from China revived risk
appetite. The index is up 6.5 percent so far in January.
Continued…
