Stock indexes ended on a worldwide uptick on Friday, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke pointed to positive economic indicators to suggest that the US and word economies are possibly emerging from the long-feared recession.

"The prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good," the Fed chief reported to a conference of bankers and economists in Wyoming.

However, Bernanke cautioned that "the economic recovery is likely to be relatively slow at first, with unemployment declining only gradually from high levels."  Current US unemployment sits at a whopping 9.4% as of the July report.  However, the slight decline from June to July represented the first time unemployment has fallen since it dropped from 4.9% in January of 2008 to 4.8% in February of the same year.  Jobless rates have seen a steady climb since then, nearly doubling to their current levels. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 155.91 points (1.67%) to finish the week at 9505.96, while the Nasdaq reached 2020.90 points for a gain of 1.59%. The Standard & Poor's 500 reached a ten-month peak, climbing to a level of 1,026.13 (up 1.9%) at the closing bell.

The British FTSE index rose about two percent, closing at 4,851. The French Cac index gained 3.1% and the German Dax 2.8%.

"Bernanke was a little bit more bullish than most people were expecting. He's saying that the global economy is starting to emerge from the recession and that the fears of a financial collapse have receded substantially," said Jacob Oubina, the currency strategist of Forex.com.

"I think the market is just taking those headlines as extreme positives for the outlook."

But Bernanke's rosy outlook wasn't shared by all economists.  Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank president, warned that talk of a complete recovery might be premature. "I am a little bit uneasy when I see that, because we have some green shoots here and there, we are already saying, 'well, after all, we are close to back to normal,' " he said.