World stocks rose for the fourth session in a row on Wednesday, despite overnight losses on Wall Street, lifting demand for higher-yielding currencies.

European shares climbed to stand nearly 6 percent higher for the month with mining stocks leading the way on higher commodity prices. The commodity-tracking Reuters/Jefferies CRB <.CRB> index is up 8.6 percent this month.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> was up 0.5 percent. Earlier, Japan's Nikkei <.N225> closed up 0.59 percent.

The global stock market rally that began in March is proving robust although a number of investors say they want to see real signs of improvements in the world economy before making a firm commitment to riskier assets.

Inevitably we're getting to the stage after the rally there's been that investors will question its sustainability given the questions that hang over corporate profitability and the improvement in economic data, said Henk Potts, a strategist at Barclays Wealth.

Goldman Sachs said as much in a note which said it had eased its recent pro-cyclical equity tilt. But it said it was not abandoning the position entirely.

Expectations of economic news have adjusted and it may now take continued positive news to keep the market moving higher, it said.

Goldman said recent weakness in some U.S. data threw the focus on this week's euro zone flash PMI figures and the Philadelphia Fed's index of business activity and whether they showed upward momentum.

As long as they do, this will reinforce our comfort that we can retest recent highs in cyclical assets, it said.

RISKIER CURRENCIES

The dollar and yen edged lower as stock markets reversed early losses. But market players were wary of taking on large positions with a dearth of economic data.

We are still in a consolidation phase as markets try to determine whether an economic recovery would take hold later this year, said Lee Hardman, currency economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

The euro was up 0.1 percent at $1.3643. The dollar was down 0.2 percent against a basket of major currencies <.DXY>.

Prices of euro zone government bonds fell. The 10-year yield was up 3 basis points at 3.457 percent at the two-year up 4 basis points at 1.336 percent.

(Additional reporting by Simon Falush and Tamawa Desai, editing by Mike Peacock)

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