Europe's sovereign debt crisis will still hang over global markets next week, but on Wall Street, investors will not be afraid to bet on stocks.

Wall Street has shown its ability to hold onto gains, or quickly recover from losses this week despite Europe's debt woes, suggesting that investors are confident of a sustained rally.

When things don't fall apart on bad news, you know that the market is no longer vulnerable. The overall sentiment is pretty solid, said Randy Frederick, director of trading and derivatives at Schwab Center for Financial Research in Austin, Texas.

The outstanding put-to-call ratio on index options, heavily focused on the S&P 500 benchmark, dropped from 1.32 last week to 1.29, showing bullish signs for next week.

The ratio, which is always greater than 1, is the primary hedging vehicle for institutional investors. The ratio rises with a market rally as the possibility of a pullback also increases.

The ability (to not fall apart) is helping investors remain upbeat on short-term prospects for stocks. We may not see this continue until the end of January next year, but the month of December certainly looks encouraging.

The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX <.VIX>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, fell despite a decline in stocks earlier in the day as traders saw fewer reasons to buy protection.

The index, which usually moves inverse to the S&P 500 benchmark, strayed from the relationship and closed at its lowest since April.

The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures exchange-traded note also notched a new year low of $41.51 on Friday. The ETN, which offers directional volatility exposure, is based off of the front two-month futures on the VIX.

There is definitely a trend in the VXX to try to get short in the ETN, said Dan Deming, a VIX options trader at Stutland Equities.

S&P 500 ENDS WEEK UP 3 PERCENT

Fears that Europe's debt crisis could spiral out of control have pushed stocks off two-year highs hit earlier this month. Last week, the S&P 500 was down 3 percent from November 5.

But the index recovered to the early November levels this week as fears were countered by a spate of healthy economic data and an upbeat outlook on consumer spending during the holiday shopping season.

Europe is kind of its own play now, said Jeff Roach, chief economist at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina, adding that investors are starting to brush off the longer-term macro issues.

On Friday, stocks closed out their best week in a month with the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> up 2.6 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 <.SPX> up 3 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> up 2.2 percent, after shrugging off tepid jobs numbers for November.

ISM FORECASTS, TRADE GAP ON TAP

Economic indicators next week will be fairly light, with the Institute for Supply Management releasing its semi-annual economic forecasts for the U.S. manufacturing and services sectors on Tuesday. The weekly mortgage data on Wednesday and jobless claims on Thursday will still get close scrutiny.

On Friday, Wall Street will watch for reports on import and export prices in November, the international trade deficit for October, and a preliminary reading December consumer sentiment from the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.

As the year wraps up, portfolio managers will continue to chase outperforming stocks and sell some laggards to keep their balance sheets healthy.

The three-day moving average of stocks hitting new 52-week highs on the New York Stock Exchange accelerated at the end of November and is now close to 250, while stocks making new 52-week lows edged down in December and remained slight.

The portfolio managers are all trying to scramble to catch up. They have performance risk, they have bonus risk and ultimately they have job risk, said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Leah Schnurr and Doris Frankel; Editing by Jan Paschal)