World stocks steadied around the previous day's near-four-month high yesterday while the yen jumped as concerns over the health of Bank of America offset the impact of strong results from BNP Paribas.

Before the release of the outcome of a stress test on 19 US banks, a source familiar with it told Reuters Bank of America needed as much as $34 billion in extra capital.

That offset positive news from French bank BNP Paribas, which reported higher-than-expected first-quarter profits and prompted investors to pause after the main MSCI world equity index rallied more than 30 per cent since mid-March.

"BofA story rains on green shooters' parade," says Marc Ostwald, strategist at Monument Securities. The MSCI world equity index was virtually unchanged on the day, after hitting its highest level since January yesterday. The index is now in positive territory for the year, gaining 2.6 per cent since early January.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index was slightly higher on the day while emerging stocks rose 0.6 per cent.

US crude oil rose 0.6 per cent to $54.16 a barrel.

The June Bund future fell 7 ticks, with eyes on a monetary policy verdict by the European Central Bank tomorrow.

The yen rose half a per cent to 98.49 per dollar while the dollar was steady against a basket of major currencies. The euro was steady at $1.3307.

"It's really caught the market in a mood of cautiousness and that's exacerbated the pullback in some of the riskier currencies," Mitul Kotecha, global head of FX strategy at Calyon in Hong Kong, said of the Bank of America report.