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Christine St Anne is Morningstar's online editor.

The World Bank's announcement last week that global growth would only increase by 2.5 per cent should have sent global markets into a tailspin. After all, it was the weakest forecast made by the bank since the global financial crisis began.

Instead, global markets actually went up following the announcement. Indeed, the new year has begun with a few surprises.

Equity markets seem to have rebounded from last year. The S&P/ASX 200 is up 19 per cent from its lows in 2011. The German bourse, the financial epicentre of Europe, was even up - by 22 per cent.

Numbers from China were also surprising, with the country's National Bureau of Statistics showing an 8.9 per cent growth rate for the December quarter, just above the consensus figure of 8.7 per cent.

It's a far cry from last year's market lows, which saw the S&P/ASX 200 plunge to just above 3000.

"It certainly has been an interesting phenomenon. The market movements show that these projections from the World Bank have largely been factored in," Tyndall head of Australian equities Bob Van Munster says.

"If we can avoid a global market meltdown, equity markets can still stage a healthy recovery in 2012," he says.

Van Munster is predicting a series of "relief rallies" for 2012, as markets and investors "play the economic cards they have been dealt".

"If the outcomes are better than the market expects and we get a number of relief rallies through, we will eventually climb that proverbial wall of worry," Van Munster says.

Fidelity Worldwide Investments portfolio manager Paul Taylor also believes the ASX will bounce back from a tumultuous 2011.

"A considerable amount of bad news is now priced into equity markets. The equity markets could benefit in 2012 by the simple fact that we do not need good news, but rather, just less bad news to see better returns," Taylor says.

Taylor also concedes that growth will slow in 2012 given the macroeconomic issues in Europe. However, the entire world is not low growth.

"The equity market has its bear hat on. The market is valuing all companies for lower growth and remains sceptical about valuing any potential growth. This is where we see the opportunities in 2012," Taylor says.

Taylor adopts a bottom-up fundamental stock research process when it comes to assessing companies. This process tends to target companies with a growth tilt.