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Stocks ended Wednesday with solid gains, as investors welcomed two reports on job growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 71 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 (SPX) added 8 points, or 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP) gained 19 points, also 0.7%.

Meanwhile, smaller stocks reached pre-recession highs. The Russell 2000 Index, a measure of small-cap stocks, rose 1.2%, reaching its highest level since October 2007.

Wednesday was all about jobs, as investors look ahead to the government’s payroll numbers on Friday. Before the opening bell, one report showed that employers announced fewer planned job cuts in March, even as government sector layoffs mounted.

A second report showed private sector employment rose by 201,000 in March, according to payroll processor ADP (ADP, Fortune 500). The figure came in slightly below forecasts but remained above 200,000.

Investors look to the ADP report as a guide for what’s coming in Friday’s government report.

"The market started off the day embracing the ADP report for payrolls, which came in pretty solid," said Howard Ward, portfolio manager for GAMCO Growth Funds. "There’s a strong likelihood they won’t be disappointed when Friday’s number comes out."

A CNNMoney survey of 18 economists forecast an 180,000 jump in payrolls. They also expect the unemployment rate to hold at 8.9%.

So far this week, investors have shrugged off ongoing global concerns in the Middle East, Libya and Japan. Stocks in Japan rallied overnight, while shares in Europe were higher in active trading. The Dow has gained about 1% since Friday’s close.

Energy: The energy sector pushed ahead after President Obama called for an increase in U.S. oil and ethanol production, to reduce the country’s dependence on energy imports.

"It’ll create more jobs in the U.S., which is a shot in the arm for markets," said Dan Flynn, energy trader with PFG Best.

ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500) surged 2.4%, Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500) rose 1.5% and Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) gained 0.6%.

Natural gas stocks also continued their rally, as Obama renewed his push for alternative energy sources.

"We have to discover and produce cleaner, renewable sources of energy," Obama said in a speech at Georgetown University. "And we have to do it quickly."

Shares of Chesapeake Energy (CHK, Fortune 500) and National Fuel Gas (NFG) each gained more than 3%.

Meanwhile, crude oil for May delivery slid 52 cents, to settle at $104.27 a barrel, after a government report showed U.S. crude inventories rose more than expected last week.

Natural gas futures for May delivery surged 2.4% on Wednesday, and have jumped more than 13% since early March.

Companies: Shares of Cephalon (CEPH) surged nearly 28% after specialty pharmaceutical firm Valeant (VRX) launched a hostile bid for the U.S. drugmaker.

Shares of private equity firm Apollo Global (APO) fell 4.2% after the firm priced its initial public offering at $19 a share — the top end of its expected range.

Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU), the third-largest Internet company in China, started trading on the NYSE Wednesday, a day after pricing its initial public offering at $14.50 a share. Shares surged 135% to $33.54.

Qihoo’s debut marks the largest Chinese IPO in the U.S. this year, following successful IPOs by Chinese tech firms Dangdang (DANG) and Youku (YOKU) in December.

BlackRock’s (BLK, Fortune 500) stock rose 6.6%. The investment firm is replacing Genzyme (GENZ, Fortune 500) on the S&P 500.

World markets: European stocks ended higher. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3%, the DAX in Germany jumped 1.8% and France’s CAC 40 added 0.9%.

Asian markets ended mostly higher. Japan’s Nikkei rallied 2.6% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 1.7%, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar rose against the Japanese yen, but fell versus the euro and the British pound.

Gold futures for June delivery rose $7.40 to $1,424.90 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury rose, pushing the yield down to 3.45% from 3.49% late Tuesday.  

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Cities hoping for cash for new infrastructure spending came away short-handed in the provincial budget.

While the Liberals are continuing transfers like the gas tax and the ongoing uploading to Queen

The yen and Swiss franc appreciated as radiation leaks from a damaged nuclear plant in Japan were discovered and a U.S.-led alliance prepared attacks on Libyan ground forces, boosting demand for the safest assets.

The pound traded near the highest in more than a year against the dollar before the Bank of England releases minutes of its March 10 meeting, which will reveal how many dissenting policy makers voted to raise interest rates, and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne presents the national budget. The euro was little changed against the dollar before Portugal’s parliament votes on budget cuts that have divided lawmakers.

The yen strengthened 0.4 percent to 114.50 per euro at 9:11 a.m. in London and appreciated 0.3 percent to 80.76 per dollar. It rose against 14 of its 16 major counterparts. The euro slipped less than 0.1 percent to $1.4193, trimming its year-to- date gain to 5.7 percent.

“Yen and Swissie are regarded as safe havens, so if risk aversion rises they usually get some support,” said Lutz Karpowitz, a currency strategist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “You’ve got the Libya crisis and extended problems in other countries in that region and the Japanese disaster. It’s pretty much a situation where it’s risk off.”

Levels of iodine unsafe for infants were reported in Tokyo tap water as workers struggled to reconnect power to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Prime Minister Naoto Kan today ordered a halt to milk and parsley shipments from a prefecture between Fukushima and Tokyo after tests showed radiation leaked into the sea and tainted some food.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 1.7 percent after surging more than 7 percent in the previous two days on speculation that the nuclear crisis was easing.

Franc, Portugal

“The earthquakes in Japan are spurring risk aversion and the losses in stocks,” said Takashi Kudo, general manager of market information services in Tokyo at NTT SmartTrade Inc., a unit of Japan’s biggest phone company. “This is resulting in buying of the yen.”

Switzerland’s franc rose against all of its major peers, appreciating 0.5 percent to 1.2765 per euro and strengthening 0.4 percent to 90.01 centimes per dollar.

Portugal’s Prime Minister Jose Socrates will today face a vote against his deficit-cutting plan, which threatens to push the country toward early elections and the need for a European Union bailout need a personal loan with bad credit.

Socrates has been attempting to reach a compromise with opposition parties, “but the opposition does not seem to buy into this,” Nicola Mai, a London-based economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., wrote in a note to investors. “The likelihood that the Portuguese government will fall this week looks high.”

‘Inflation Risks’

EU leaders are divided over how to let a euro-region stopgap fund spend its full capacity of 440 billion euros ($624 billion) to ease the region’s credit woes as a March 24-25 summit approaches. Policy makers have settled on a permanent rescue fund able to lend 500 billion euros as of 2013.

“People are looking at two things this morning: Portugal and the U.K.,” said Geoffrey Yu, a foreign-exchange strategist at UBS AG in London. “Maybe Portugal’s austerity budget won’t go through, and they will go cap in hand for a bailout. That could be weighing on the euro a little bit. Most of the good news is already priced in.”

The pound slipped less than 0.1 percent to $1.6357 and was also little changed against the euro. Sterling reached $1.6401 yesterday, the highest since January 2010, after inflation data beat forecasts and spurred bets on interest-rate increases.

Bank of England

The U.K. central bank kept its benchmark rate on hold at 0.5 percent on March 10, even as inflation remained above its 2 percent target. Minutes of that gathering are due for release at 9:30 a.m. in London and will show how many of the central bank’s nine policy makers voted to raise borrowing costs.

“The market has moved to price in a July hike, though a May move alongside the next inflation report has advocates too,” David Watt, senior currency strategist at RBC Dominion Securities Inc. in Toronto, wrote in a note to clients.

South Korea’s won slid for the first time in four days as oil rose on unrest in Libya and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined in New York yesterday.

“We had a weaker session in U.S. equities and there’s also renewed concerns developing in Europe, so that’s spilling over to risk sentiment in Asia,” said Thomas Harr, head of Asian foreign-exchange strategy at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore.

The won fell to 1,124.35 per dollar from 1,120.95 yesterday.

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The yen weakened for a second day against all of its major counterparts as Japan made progress in cooling nuclear reactors at a crippled plant, increasing appetite for higher-yielding assets.

The yen extended losses after sliding the most against the dollar in six months on March 18, when the Group of Seven nations intervened to bring the currency down from a postwar high. The euro gained against the dollar after Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker said euro-area finance ministers have agreed on all elements of a permanent bailout fund. Commodity-linked currencies gained and China’s yuan reached a two-week high.

“The market seems to have a friendlier disposition toward stocks and risk taking in general,” said Joe Manimbo, a market analyst in Washington at Travelex Global Business Payments, a currency-exchange network. “The first G-7 intervention in more than a decade helped usher in a sense of calm in the financial markets.”

Japan’s currency weakened 0.5 percent to 81 per dollar at 2:16 p.m. in New York after slumping 2.1 percent on March 18. The yen depreciated 0.8 percent to 115.24 per euro. Financial markets in Japan were shut today for a national holiday.

The euro rose 0.3 percent to $1.4227 from $1.4182 March 18. The 17-nation currency had weakened as much as 0.3 percent.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1.6 percent.

Postwar High

The Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against six major peers including the euro, yen and British pound, declined 0.3 percent to 75.460, after touching then lowest level since December 2009.

The yen surged to a post-World War II high of 76.25 versus the dollar on March 17 after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, damaging cooling systems at a nuclear-power plant north of Tokyo. The currency’s gain came amid speculation investors were repatriating assets to fund an estimated 10 trillion yen ($123.6 billion) for reconstruction.

Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan said today he sees “light at the end of the tunnel” for Japan’s crisis and that progress is being made in restoring power to reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

G-7 Moves

The G-7, which comprises the U.S., Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, Canada and Italy, sold yen on March 18 after finance ministers spoke on a conference call, according to Japan’s Vice Finance Minister Fumihiko Igarashi. The G-7 statement promised to “provide any cooperation” with Japan.

“Today there is a bit of relief that the situation in Japan is not deteriorating,” which is damping demand for the Swiss franc, said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, head of currency research at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen.

Switzerland’s franc weakened 0.7 percent against the euro to 1.2870 per euro and depreciated 0.5 percent against the dollar to 90.58 centimes.

The euro rose earlier after the National Wellbeing Fund, one of Russia’s two funds the state uses to safeguard windfall oil revenue, was authorized to buy Spanish government bonds with maturities of between three months and one year starting today, the Finance Ministry said on its website.

Ministers Meeting

Euro-area finance ministers plan to meet in Brussels to further develop a package of measures on the region’s debt crisis and economic governance. European Union leaders will hold a summit March 24-25 to discuss the measures.

“Maybe people are more optimistic that there’s going to be an agreement for policy this week,” Brian Kim, a currency strategist at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut.

The Australian and New Zealand dollars climbed for a second day as higher oil prices increased demand for currencies linked to commodities. Crude oil futures rose as much as 2.3 percent in New York.

“There’s a slight bullish bias this week,” said Mike Jones, a currency strategist at Bank of New Zealand Ltd. in Wellington. “High global commodity prices are a big boon for the kiwi and Aussie.”

Australia’s currency advanced 0.9 percent to $1.0053 while New Zealand’s dollar rose 0.3 percent to 73.36 U.S. cents.

Dollar Gain

Canada’s dollar posted the second best performance against the major currencies, after Australia, gaining 0.7 percent to 97.75 cents per U.S. dollar. Oil is the nation’s biggest export.

The Group of Seven nations’ agreement to jointly intervene to sell the yen is likely to be “successful,” according to UBS AG, the world’s second-largest foreign-exchange trader.

Joint intervention has marked turning points for currencies targeted on four of five previous occasions during the past three decades, a history that suggests the yen will “peak now,” wrote Mansoor Mohi-uddin, Singapore-based head of global currency strategy at UBS, in a note today. The Swiss bank also maintains its forecast for the yen to weaken to 85 per dollar in three months, he said.

China’s yuan advanced to two-week high after the central bank raised banks’ reserve requirements and set the currency’s reference rate at the strongest level since 2005.

Policy makers lifted reserve requirements for the third time this year on March 18, by half a percentage point, judging that inflation remains a bigger threat to the world’s second- largest economy than Japan’s earthquake and nuclear crisis. The People’s Bank of China set the reference rate 0.05 percent higher at 6.5632 per dollar, the strongest level since July 2005.

The yuan gained 0.1 percent to 6.5614 per dollar, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

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Top officials from the United States, Europe and the Arab world have announced immediate military action to protect civilians amid combat between Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and rebel fighters.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after an emergency summit in Paris on Saturday that France has already taken military action against Libya.

Sarkozy said “our determination is total.”

Earlier Saturday, Libyan government troops forces stormed into the rebel capital of Benghazi, apparently ignoring a proclaimed cease-fire and potentially complicating any allied military action.

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Prince William reflected on the horror being endured by the disaster-stricken Japanese as he spoke Friday in the ruins of Christchurch city at a memorial service for the victims of one of New Zealand’s most destructive earthquakes.

More than 40,000 people crammed leafy Hagley Park near the devastated business district of New Zealand’s second largest city for the first official occasion of national grieving since the quake Feb. 22.

Police have confirmed 166 deaths from the magnitude 6.3 quake, but the toll could exceed 180 with remains still to be identified.

William, representing his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, the monarch of New Zealand as well as Britain, spoke of his sympathy and admiration for the people of Christchurch and of those suffering after last week’s massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

“This community, more than any other in the world, can appreciate the full horror of what is unfolding in Japan,” he said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them, too.”

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan a week ago killed thousands of people and critically damaged nuclear power reactors, where workers are fighting to prevent a radiation crisis.

William, second in line to the British throne, has spent two days in Christchurch touring the devastated city center and wrecked suburbs instant payday loan. He has met with residents, many of whom have lost homes, businesses, and after he spoke Friday mingled with around 400 relatives and partners of the dead.

“I convey to you Her Majesty’s message of deep sympathy and condolence,” he said in his address.

“My grandmother once said that grief is the price we pay for love. Here today, we love and we grieve,” he added.

William said he had been deeply moved by what he had seen during his visit to Christchurch.

With the “heartfelt good wishes” of the Queen, her son Prince Charles, the first in line to the throne, “and other members of my family, I say it to you kia kaha, be strong,” William said, using an indigenous Maori term.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker also noted Japan’s crisis in their remarks at the memorial.

The service was attended by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and ambassadors of several countries. A video played on large screens showed previously unseen footage of the devastated downtown sector, still off limits due to the risk of building collapses.

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Shares of General Electric dropped 2% Tuesday as investors questioned the future earnings potential of the industrial conglomerate’s energy business in a post-Japanese earthquake environment.

The decline follows a 3.5% drop in GE (GE, Fortune 500) shares the day before.

GE has become the U.S. company most tied to the Japanese crisis because it designed the six nuclear reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Current reports say Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees have been ordered to evacuate, and it appears a meltdown is highly possible at at least one of the reactors.

Analysts believe the selloff in GE shares is overblown. While GE’s nuclear business may see an earnings drop, they say the rest of the company remains well-diversified.

Nuclear energy remains a small part of GE’s overall business. The division had about $1 billion in revenue in 2010, compared with the $40 billion GE took in at its entire GE Energy business, according to a GE spokeswoman.

GE had about $152 billion in overall sales in 2010, making its nuclear division contribute less than 1% of total revenue.

Despite nuclear energy being a small part of its business, GE has been pushing to grow the company’s nuclear energy division, especially as global energy conversation focuses around low-carbon forms of energy production.

"While nuclear energy has never been a big chunk of what GE does, it was always highlighted as a growth part of GE’s business, particularly as nuclear energy was gaining more momentum," said Morningstar analyst Daniel Holland.

Last year the company added five new sales offices in Asia, and last week it announced it would begin selling its latest generation nuclear reactor model.

A meltdown at the old GE-branded nuclear reactors in Japan, combined with a chilly political climate for nuclear energy, could create more difficult headwinds for GE to grow that business, analysts said no fax payday loan.

There is also the potential for legal liability related to the Japanese nuclear reactors, but analysts do not think that will eventually be the case. While the reactors were GE-designed, they were run and managed by the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Deane Dray, an analyst with Citigroup, said GE is expected to remain financially insulated from any liability related to a possible nuclear meltdown due to a Japanese law that places the responsibility for nuclear accidents on the shoulders of the plant operator, not designer.

Insurers continue to decline on liability worries

Shares of Prudential (PRU, Fortune 500), Hartford Financial (HIG, Fortune 500) and Aflac (AFL, Fortune 500) also dropped sharply Tuesday as investors worried about how much exposure insurers have following Friday’s earthquake and the potential of a nuclear meltdown.

Aflac, which does 75% of its business in Japan, saw its shares fall 6% in midday trading. The drop comes despite the company saying that only 5% of its in-force policies were from areas affected by the earthquake. Aflac reaffirmed its 2011 full-year guidance.

Prudential shares were down 2%. The New Jersey-based company recently increased its business in Japan, buying parts of AIG’s non-life insurance business in Asia for $5 billion back in September.

Risk management firm AIR Worldwide gave an early estimate Sunday that the total amount of quake-related claims would be between $15.5 billion and $35.5 billion. The estimate is only for earthquake-related damages and does not take into full account the damages from the tsunami and the possibility of a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

With that in account, AIR expects this earthquake to cost more than Hurricane Katrina.  

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Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the group of euro-area finance ministers, said he is “not happy” about the role played by credit-rating companies in Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis, particularly in the case of Spain.

“In the U.S., people are saying that financial markets would not always be best advised to follow the assessments given by the rating agencies,” Juncker told reporters yesterday in Brussels, where he chaired a meeting of finance chiefs. “As far as this very point is concerned, I’m very American.”

Moody’s Investors Service lowered Spain’s credit rating to Aa2 on March 10, saying Spanish lenders will need as much as 50 billion euros ($70 billion) to meet new capital requirements, more than double the 20 billion euros seen by the government in Madrid. Juncker said it is “surprising” that Moody’s didn’t wait to see the Bank of Spain’s assessment of lenders’ capital shortfall, which was due on the same day, before downgrading the nation’s credit rating.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the ratings downgrade is being studied as an example of problems with how rating agencies work. “The fact that the downgrade came within a few hours of that statement prompted a rejection of the way they’re operating,” she said yesterday in Brussels. The European Union wants to set new rules for the timing and justification of such ratings changes, she added.

Warning Period

Credit-ratings companies may be forced to give governments three days’ notice of any change to their rating under proposals made in November by the European Commission, the EU executive. Extending the warning period to 72 hours, from the current 12 hours, would give countries a chance to point out “factual errors” and “new developments” which may influence the rating, according to the commission.

Moody’s said it “will continue to engage constructively with European policy makers on the evolving regulation of our industry,” according to an e-mailed statement from the company. “Our ratings derive from transparent methodologies and are supported by in-depth research and analysis.”

The Brussels-based commission also is considering setting up a publicly funded agency to compete with companies such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. European Central Bank officials have criticized rating companies for announcing changes in sovereign ratings just as Europe’s debt crisis was unfolding, exacerbating market turmoil.

Spain has taken unprecedented measures to avoid following Greece and Ireland into a bailout, implementing the deepest budget cuts in at least three decades. The government in Madrid is tightening capital requirements for banks in an effort to show investors that its lenders can weather a fourth year of economic slump.

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Stephanie Bilbija, a university student and single mom, will have to save for a few more years before she’s a home owner, thanks to new mortgage rules that may force some Canadians to think twice about whether they’re ready to jump into the market.

The new rules as of Friday will make the maximum payback period 30 years

The yield on Portuguese five-year debt reached a euro-era record amid speculation the nation may be nearing a request for financial aid. Bunds rose for a third day as stocks fell after an earthquake struck northern Japan.

Ten-year Portuguese bonds fell for a fifth day. When asked whether his country was preparing to request a bailout, Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos said European leaders must understand the “seriousness” of the region’s debt crisis. He made the remarks at a press conference in Lisbon before a European summit later today. Spanish and Italian bonds jumped, while Irish and Greek securities fell.

The minister’s comments “might indicate that financial support for Portugal will be discussed at the weekend,” said Michael Leister, a fixed-income analyst at WestLB AG in Dusseldorf, Germany. “Yields show that the market is concerned, and is waiting for something,” he said.

The yield on the Portuguese five-year bond rose 22 basis points to 7.99 percent as of 4:45 p.m. in London, the most since at least 1997 when Bloomberg began collecting the data. The 6.4 percent securities maturing in February 2016 dropped 0.83, or 8.30 euros per 1,000-euro ($1,386) face amount, to 93.725. The yield premium for the securities over similar-maturity German debt widened to a record 546 basis points, or 5.46 percentage points.

The 10-year yield was 10 basis points higher at 7.74 percent. Credit-default swaps on Portuguese government debt rose 14 basis points to 520, the highest since Jan. 11, according to CMA. Contracts on Greece rose 8 basis points to a record 1,048.

Leaders Meeting

EU leaders gather today in Brussels, aiming to agree on a blueprint to improve competitiveness, a plan Germany demanded as a condition for expanding the bailout effort. Investors will also be looking for signs that differences over how to solve the debt crisis are narrowing ahead of a second meeting on March 24- 25 that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said will produce a comprehensive package of measures.

“We’re going to wait for this meeting to take place,” Dos Santos said after announcing additional budget-cutting measures equivalent to 0.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2011 and 2.5 percent next year. “I hope the European leaders understand the seriousness of the situation we’re facing.”

Portugal may be moving closer to seeking a bailout, Fabio Scacciavillani, chief economist of Oman Investment Fund, said yesterday in an e-mailed response to questions, citing the nation’s “deteriorating” debt position.

Market Access

“Portugal is a clear case of a country that’s going to lose market access,” Nouriel Roubini, the economist who predicted the global financial crisis, told Maryam Nemazee on Bloomberg Television’s “Countdown” in London today. “There is not going to be a comprehensive plan that resolves the problems of the peripherals of the euro zone” after the EU leaders’ meeting, he said.

Greek 10-year yields rose six basis points to 12.81 percent and similar-maturity Irish yields jumped 14 basis points to 9.65 percent. The nations both accepted rescues from the EU and International Monetary Fund last year.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny rebuffed conditions set out by Merkel for easing bailout terms, rejecting proposals for a common corporation tax across the euro area. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou today called for “strong decisions, to calm the markets.”

Spanish Bonds Rise

Spanish and Italian bonds rose as investors bet assistance for Portugal would reduce debt-crisis “contagion” to other nations, according to WestLB’s Leister.

The 10-year yield on Spanish bonds fell eight basis points to 5.43 percent and similar-maturity Italian yields fell 11 basis points to 4.87 percent. Italy sold 1.98 billion euros of bonds maturing in March 2026 and 2.81 billion euros of 2015 securities today.

The yield on the benchmark German bund was four basis points lower at 3.21 percent as stocks fell in Asia and Europe after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake rocked buildings in Japan’s financial center and a tsunami as high as 10 meters was reported in northern Japan, boosting demand for government bonds. Euribor futures rose, sending the yield on the contract due in December down six basis points to 2.045 percent as investors cut bets for higher interest rates.

Saudi Protests

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of shares declined as much as 1.8 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost as much as 1.1 percent.

As violence escalates in Libya, protests are scheduled today in Saudi Arabia, holder of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Security forces broke up a protest yesterday in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. Police fired above the crowd of 120-150 people to end the rally after a policeman taking video to document the event was attacked, Major General Mansour al-Turki, an interior ministry spokesman, said in an interview. Three people were injured, two protesters and one policeman, he said.

“There are safe-haven flows because of the Japanese earthquake, the crisis in North Africa and uncertainties about the debt crisis,” said Birgit Figge, a bond strategist at DZ Bank AG in Frankfurt. “There are a lot of uncertainties in the market and that’s driven bunds higher.”

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