The Amsterdam stock exchange’s blue chip AEX index closed at 335.33 points on Thursday afternoon, up 70% from its March low of just under 200 points and 35% up on early January.

The rise follows a 50% drop in the main Dutch index in 2008 following the global banking crisis.
And analysts are optimistic about Dutch stocks’ performance in 2010, the Financieele Dagblad reports.
‘Given the upwards economic momentum and reasonable values, we think the first part of 2010 has upward potential,’ the paper quotes analysts at SNS Securities as saying.
‘We do not expect a double dip for the Netherlands,’ say analysts at Royal Bank of Scotland.
Swiss banking group UBS is advising investors to put theirmoney in bigger companies. Telecoms group KPN, postal firm TNT and publishing firm Reed Elsevier are all on its buy list, the paper says.