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The African Union handed a resounding victory to Alassane Ouattara on Thursday in a decision reaffirming him as the legal president of Ivory Coast and saying the country’s highest court must swear him in, officials said.

The decision adopted by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and read to African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has not been made public, but the contents were confirmed by members of the both competing governments in Ivory Coast.

The decision calls on Laurent Gbagbo, who lost the presidential election, to leave office and is a diplomatic victory for Ouattara. He has been recognized by governments around the world as the country’s legitimate president but who has been unable to assume office because Gbagbo is refusing to leave the presidential palace.

The election standoff has degenerated into bloody street battles and Ivory Coast stands on the brink of civil war, with the pro-Gbagbo army accused of gunning down hundreds of civilians who voted for Ouattara.

The resolution states that the council “reaffirms the victory of Mr. Alassane Dramane Ouattara in the election of Nov. 28, 2010″ and that “Mr. Laurent Gbagbo must leave in the superior interest of the Ivorian people, and to safeguard peace.”

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council calls on Ivory Coast’s constitutional council to swear Ouattara in as president.

The draft resolution still has a blank where the date of the swearing in ceremony was to be written. An adviser to Ouattara, who spoke on the telephone from Addis Ababa, said the timeline had not yet been agreed upon, but that it would likely be within the next week. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

It was the constitutional council, led by a close ally of Gbagbo, that overturned the results of the country’s election commission in December, giving victory to Gbagbo, even though the results showed Ouattara won by over 54 percent and were certified by the United Nations.

To be able to declare Gbagbo the winner, the council annulled results from the northern half of Ivory Coast, the region where Ouattara was born, throwing out more than half a million ballots from areas that had voted overwhelmingly in his favor.

It’s unclear how the African Union plans to force Gbagbo to step down. He has refused similar calls from other world and regional bodies, including the United Nations’ Security Council and the Economic Community of West African States, which had warned that it would use all the means necessary, including an armed intervention to force Gbagbo out.

Reached in his hotel room in Addis Ababa, Gbagbo’s representative, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, who served as his campaign manager and is president of his political party, said that the decision by the African Union council is untenable.

“This decision is not satisfactory for us. We would like to tell the council that it is in fact unacceptable,” he said by telephone. “We know that President Gbagbo was proclaimed the winner of the election. He was sworn in by the constitutional council, and I don’t think they can ignore this reality and demand that the council swear in another candidate.”

The AU resolution also calls on Ouattara to appoint a government of national unity and reconciliation which would include members of Gbagbo’s party.

The resolution clears the way for the military option because if Gbagbo refuses to go, Ouattara and his supporters can claim they exhausted every diplomatic option before resorting to force. Already the northern suburbs of this commercial capital are controlled by rebels backing Ouattara who say they are waiting to march on the palace.

On Thursday, an AP reporter visited the area called PK-18, so named because it is 18 kilometers, or K, north of the Plateau district, hence P, where the presidency is located.

Getting to the area involves leaving a highway where a final military checkpoint is guarded by soldiers loyal to Gbagbo, and then passing a line of control, manned by gunmen claiming allegiance to Ouattara.

On Friday, Ouattara is expected to travel to Abuja, Nigeria, his adviser said, where he will meet with President Goodluck Jonathan, the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States in order to further discuss the military option.

Earlier on Thursday, Gbagbo _ who sent a delegation to represent him in Addis Ababa _ declared that United Nations aircraft would no longer be able to fly over Ivory Coast.

The decision was ignored by the U.N., which continued to patrol the city from the air, but the timing of the announcement appeared to indicate that Gbagbo may try to prevent Ouattara from returning.

Since the disputed election, Ouattara has been barricaded inside a resort hotel protected by sandbags, concertina wire and hundreds of United Nations soldiers. To leave he was forced to take a U.N. helicopter from the hotel’s lawn to the northern city of Bouake, controlled by rebels that support him, before boarding a charter plane to Ethiopia.

The trip marked the first time that Ouattara has left the country since the political standoff began, but his spokesman dismissed Gbagbo’s order as another empty threat.

“Laurent Gbagbo is no longer the president of Ivory Coast _ his decisions mean nothing,” said Patrick Achi, the spokesman for Ouattara’s government. “He told the ambassadors to leave. They’re still here. He told the United Nations to quit, their ranks were reinforced. He said the helicopters could no longer fly, the helicopters are flying all over Abidjan.”

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As a historic bull market reaches its second birthday, everyday investors are piling back into stocks, finally ready for more risk and hoping the rally has further to go.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has almost doubled since March 9, 2009, when it hit a 12-year low after the financial crisis. And the Dow Jones industrials are back above 12,000, about 2,000 points shy of their all-time high.

Little-guy investors appear to be on board. Since the beginning of the year, investors have put $24.2 billion into U.S. stock mutual funds, according to the Investment Company Institute. They withdrew $96.7 billion in 2010.

“It didn’t feel right to be back in until now,” says Richard Dukas, who heads a public relations firm in New York City. “I still don’t want to put all my money in the market, but I believe we’ve come through the worst of it.”

After the 2008 financial meltdown, Dukas and his wife converted their 401(k) retirement accounts into cash. They had been burned during the bubble in technology stocks a decade ago, and Dukas says he has been “extremely skittish” ever since.

Now Dukas, 48, says 85 percent of his portfolio is back in mutual funds, although he maintains a small cushion of cash.

More job security, strengthening retirement account balances and improvement in the overall U.S. economy are some of the factors that have brought everyday investors back to the market. A snapshot of what’s happened:

_ The outlook of investors as measured by stock newsletters and market surveys has been extremely bullish for two or three months, says Mark Arbeter, chief technical strategist for S&P Equity Research.

_ Many workers have enjoyed seeing their 401(k) balances return to where they stood at the market’s peak because they kept contributing during the down years. Many who have maintained their 401(k) accounts for a decade or longer still have some ground to make up because of their larger starting balances.

_ Americans who still have jobs are as secure as they’ve been in 14 years. That’s because the number of planned layoffs has fallen to a low, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The combination has boosted confidence and brought investors back to a rising market. The Dow was trading Tuesday at around 12,200, up 86 percent from the 2009 low. It’s still 14 percent below its all-time high in October 2007.

While the economy is improving, it will take a lot longer to erase the abject fear that average investors have felt about owning stocks the last two years, says Jason Trennert, chief investment strategist for Strategas Research Partners in New York.

One reason to set aside their reservations: They can’t find a better place to stash their money. The bull market in bonds has ended, money-market accounts are returning 1 percent or less, and the average two-year CD earns no more than 1.5 percent.

As a result, many investors returning to the market are tiptoeing back in. They’re buying what Trennert calls “stocks that look like bonds” _ dividend-paying blue chips that they hope will hedge their risk by guaranteeing at least a dividend payout small personal loans.

For example, while stocks like Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble haven’t gone up much since 2009, their yields _ 3.5 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively _ mean investors can still pocket something.

“What swayed me is being frustrated having my money parked where it’s earning almost nothing,” says Debra Condren, a New York business consultant, who has been easing back into the market over the last four months. She still has only 30 percent of her investments in stocks, compared with 80 to 85 percent before the crash.

Besides reinvesting gradually, Condren says she’s much more vigilant about her stocks. She says she won’t hesitate to sell if she doesn’t like what she sees in the market or senses a shift based on world events.

Among professional money managers, the shift back into stocks has been more dramatic. A February survey by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch of 270 top investment managers found them more bullish about stocks than at any time in the past decade.

But history shows experts may not have better insight about what’s next. Plus, individual investors notoriously follow the crowd. So is it a worrisome sign that they’re flocking back?

“Investors have the tendency to make the wrong decisions behaviorally,” says Christopher Geczy, academic director of the Wealth Management Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

When they pile in or out of stocks, he says, it often signals that the market is about to turn in the opposite direction. For instance, investors pumped nearly $91 billion into stock funds in 2007, just as the market was reaching its all-time peak.

Yet analysts point to signs that the run could keep going for quite a while, as long as the economy cooperates. Corporations are still sitting on billions of dollars in cash that they may ultimately put to work in the market.

The S&P 500 has an average gain of 17 percent in the third year of a presidential cycle. But the market also tends to grow much more slowly in the third year of a bull run.

Stock prices are still not high by historic standards. The S&P 500 index now trades at 15.6 times the operating earnings of its stocks over the past year, well under the historical average of 19.3.

There are plenty of investors still looking for an opportunity to get back in. Kenneth Kracmer, who owns a marketing firm in Dallas, is restless after cutting his stock allocation by half, to 30 percent.

But he worries about unemployment, state governments in financial distress and a market he sees as artificially high in view of all the challenging economic news.

Other investors are clearly on edge, too. Before Tuesday, the market had fallen nearly 3 percent in two and a half weeks because of concerns about unrest in the Middle East.

“I want to play it smart until there’s a little bit of economic certainty,” Kracmer says. “I don’t want to get in just before another drop.”

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Part of a Michigan auto parts factory that was shut down by a fire last week is back in operation.

The blaze at the Magna International Inc. factory had forced General Motors and Mazda to cut production due to parts shortages.

But a Magna spokeswoman says crews were able to reopen about half of the factory and start producing parts during the weekend.

The plant makes ceilings, consoles and other plastic interior parts for at least five automakers.

GM closed its Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant on Friday and Monday. But the company now says production is expected to resume on Tuesday. Work will restart at an adjoining parts plant on Monday night.

The Magna Plant in Howell Township, Michigan, northwest of Detroit also makes parts for Nissan, Chrysler and Ford.

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Orders to U.S. factories climbed in January by the most in more than four years as demand for commercial aircraft rebounded after slumping the previous month.

Bookings for manufacturers’ goods increased 3.1 percent, the most since September 2006, after a revised 1.4 percent gain in December that was larger than previously estimated, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Orders excluding transportation equipment also advanced, propelled by a jump in demand for non-durable goods that may reflect higher commodity prices.

Companies including General Motors Co. (GM) and Deere & Co. are benefiting from improving demand in the U.S. and abroad, which may prompt further gains in factory employment. The Federal Reserve this week said “solid growth” at manufacturers led to stronger labor market conditions in several regions.

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard highlighted risks posed by Australia’s ties to a global commodity boom, with a patchwork economy emerging from export gains accompanied by subdued domestic spending.

“I’m very conscious that a strong Australian dollar has benefits and it has burdens,” Gillard said in an interview yesterday in Canberra, citing stresses posed by currency gains for the manufacturing and tourism industries. The local dollar, spurred by revenue from shipments of coal and iron ore to China, has reached levels unseen since 1982 in recent weeks.

Gillard’s comments reflect a challenge faced by policy makers from Brazil to China, where strengthening exchange rates risk undermining exports unconnected to the climb in global commodity prices. While emerging markets have taken steps to stem currency gains, such as through limits on capital inflows, Australia has refrained from such measures and Gillard said she favors letting the market set the so-called Aussie.

“The domestic economy is probably weaker than expected and that reflects the fine balancing act for policy makers,” said Tom Vosa, director of economic research at National Australia Bank Ltd. in London. “There is a risk of a Dutch disease effect,” he added, referring to the Netherlands’s experience of a surge in growth in its energy industry that drove up the currency and hurt manufacturing.

Highest Since Float

Australia’s dollar, the world’s fifth-most traded currency, in December reached its highest level against its U.S. counterpart since before it was floated in 1983, and has climbed 12 percent in the past year. It fell as much as 0.2 percent after Gillard’s comments, and was 0.1 percent lower at $1.0134 as of 10:18 a.m. in Sydney today. It touched $1.0256 on Dec. 31.

“I’m concerned about the burdens that this places on some industries and some parts of the country,” Gillard said. At the same time, Australia accepts the implications of a freely floating currency and chooses to “live with the disciplines that come from that,” she said when asked whether her government would consider intervening to weaken the dollar.

The currency’s advance has been propelled by demand from China for iron ore and coal, which have helped make Australia the world’s biggest shipper of the two commodities.

“For this current resources boom, we anticipate that it will be sustained,” Gillard, 49, said two days before departing on her first visit to the U.S. as prime minister. “We have very strong demand from growing economies like China for our resources. We anticipate there will be strong demand and good prices for a long period of time to come.”

U.S. Trip

Gillard said she will discuss the global economic recovery and strategic developments in Asia during her nine-day visit to Washington and New York. Gillard is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. She will address Congress March 9, the first Australian leader to do so since John Howard in 2002.

Australia’s economic growth accelerated to a quarterly pace of 0.7 percent in the final three months of last year, a government report showed two days ago payday loan lenders. The nation is benefitting from its strongest terms of trade, a measure of income from exports, since the early 1950s, according to the central bank.

Outside of mining, the economy is doing less well. Australia’s services industry contracted in February, a survey showed yesterday. The performance of services index was 48.7 from 45.5 in January, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Australian Industry Group said in Sydney. A figure below 50 indicates contraction.

‘Very Optimistic’

“High commodity prices, record terms of trade, a strong dollar, puts some pressure on other sections of the economy,” she said, declining to comment on the outlook for interest rates. “The fundamentals are strong and consequently I am very optimistic for our economic outlook.”

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens gave no indication this week that he’s ready to resume increasing the benchmark overnight cash rate target, now at 4.75 percent, in coming months. Bond investors have raised bets on higher inflation as the mining-investment boom holds down unemployment.

The nation recorded its biggest annual gain in employment on record in 2010 as resource and energy companies boosted hiring to meet demand from China in what the RBA has called a once-in-a-century mining boom. The jobless rate was 5 percent in January, compared with 9 percent in the U.S.

Mining Investment

BG Group Plc, based in Reading, U.K., said Oct. 31 it will begin work on a $15 billion liquefied natural gas venture in Queensland, generating 5,000 jobs. BG, Chevron Corp. (CVX), Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and ConocoPhillips are among companies investing about A$200 billion in proposed LNG projects in Australia.

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Stocks bounced between small gains and losses Wednesday after the price of oil topped $102 a barrel as Libya edged closer to a civil war.

Rebel forces in the country repelled an attack on a key oil port by forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi. Crude oil prices rose to $102.26 a barrel, continuing a weeklong surge that has pushed gas prices up 20 cents a gallon. Stocks fell Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that persistent high oil prices could threaten the pace of the economic recovery

“When you look at the stock market any given day it’s hard to isolate cause and effect, but today we don’t have that problem,” said Lawrence Creatura, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors. “Investors will have one eye on oil prices for quite some time.”

The market had started higher after a surprisingly strong report came out on private sector employment. Payroll processor ADP said private companies added 217,000 jobs last month, well above the 180,000 analysts had predicted no fax payday loans. That raised hopes that the government’s employment report coming up Friday could show a decline in the unemployment rate, which is currently 9 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 3 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 12,055 in afternoon trading. The S&P 500 was flat at 1,306. The Nasdaq composite gained 10 points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,747.

Retail companies reported mixed earnings reports before the market opened. Staples Inc. fell 1 percent after reporting income that was slightly below what analysts were expecting. Costco Wholesale Corp. fell 1.3 percent after reporting earnings that met expectations.

Apple Inc. is expected to announce a new version of its iPad tablet computer later in the day. The company’s stock rose 0.3 percent, to $350.47.

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Struggling shopping mall operator Centro Properties Group said Tuesday it has agreed to sell its 588 U.S. malls to New York-based Blackstone Group LP in a deal valued at $9.4 billion.

The acquisition is Blackstone’s largest since its $20.1 billion takeover of Hilton Hotels Corp. in 2007 and shows confidence that the weak retail market in the U.S., where unemployment is hovering above 9 percent, will improve.

Centro, which is weighed down by massive debt including $8 billion from its U.S. malls, also announced a plan to pay off its creditors by giving them ownership of most of its Australian shopping malls.

Lower-ranked creditors and ordinary shareholders would be left with about $100 million.

“We have previously said that the capital structure of Centro is unsustainable in its current form,” Centro chairman Paul Cooper said in a statement.

The deal, if approved, “will return Centro to a positive equity position and potentially allow Centro to return some value to its stakeholders,” he said.

Centro, based in Melbourne, Australia, said the $9.4 billion sale price was a 1.3 percent discount to the book value of the malls at Dec. 31.

Centro said it was also in discussions with Centro Retail Group, Centro Australia Wholesale Fund, Direct Property Fund and other Centro syndicates to create a single portfolio of Australian shopping malls once the U.S. assets sale was complete.

The cancellation of Centro’s debts is contingent on lenders accepting the amalgamation of the Australian funds plus stakeholder approvals once the details of the transaction are finalized.

Securities of Centro Properties were down 10 percent on the Australian stock exchange.

Many of Centro’s U.S. properties are shopping centers anchored by grocery stores, which have been more resilient to rising vacancy rates than other types of commercial properties, said Joseph French, national director of retail for commercial real estate services firm Sperry Van Ness in New York.

The sale of large commercial property portfolios in the U.S. all but came to a stop after the financial crisis hit in late 2008 and credit dried up.

Commercial property sales started to become more common last year, with the apartment sector leading the way. Now retail property sales are starting to pick up.

All that bodes well for private equity investor Blackstone, whether it decides to hold onto the properties and collect management and lease fees, or look to sell.

“Their options are all good, whatever they decide to do, hold or sell,” French said. “The portfolio has the kind of product that people are looking to buy today.”

A Citigroup Global Markets report released on Monday said the U.S. Centro properties were 88 percent occupied as of Dec. 31.

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