After a string of weeks dominated by declines and bad news, stock market investors are gearing up for recovery, brokers told Dnevnik, noting that the speech by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will set the direction.

On Friday, the Fed chief pledged to take all possible steps to ensure continuation of economic recovery and to map out measures to take in case it starts to lose steam. The US markets welcomed the statement.

“Stock markets will most probably rise in the coming days unless Ben Bernanke’s Friday speech contains something that could cause big alarm with investors,” said Apostol Apostolov, broker with TBI Invest.

He expects stock markets will be propped by the nice GDP and job market data in the US, which instilled some optimism in the final days after weeks of lows and poor US economic signals.

“The events that have been unfolding on stock markets are a direct reflection of speculations and expectations for slowdown in global economic growth,” according to Vladimir Nechev, dealer with Investbank.

On Friday, the blue-chip SOFIX index of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) inched up 0.01% to 387.13 points, closing the week 0.5% lower. Dnevnik 20 of the biggest and most liquid stocks slipped 1.5% for the five sessions but added 0.13% to 55.43 points on Friday.