GLOBAL MARKETS-World, EM stocks hit 2009 peak; dlr plunges

* Emerging equities reach pre-Lehman highs

* World stocks hit 2009 peak

* U.S. dollar index hits a near one-year low

* Gold rises above $1,000 an ounce (Recasts, updates with U.S. markets, changes byline, dateline; previous LONDON)

By Manuela Badawy

NEW YORK, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Global and emerging market stocks hit a 2009 high on Tuesday and the U.S. dollar plummeted to one-year lows as investors' appetite for risk increased.

U.S. stocks rose as rising commodity prices and merger and acquisition activity fed the belief that the U.S. economy is strengthening. For more see [.N].

World stocks, as measured by MSCI .MIWD00000PUS were up 1.08 percent, hitting a new 2009 peak; while MSCI's emerging market index .MSCIEF rose 1.8 percent to its highest since Sept. 9 last year, a few days before the demise of Lehman Brothers bank and a mass market sell-off triggered by fears for the financial system.

But the dollar sank more than 1 percent against a basket of other major currencies .DXY, indicating greater risk appetite on foreign exchanges as trading volume picked up after the end of summer holidays in the United States.

"As we enter the first trading day after the summer, investors are decisively in risk-seeking mode," said Camilla Sutton, a currency strategist at Scotia Capital in Toronto.

At 1:32 p.m. 1732 (GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 25.84 points, or 0.27 percent, at 9,467.11. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX was up 5.81 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,022.21. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 8.92 points, or 0.44 percent, at 2,027.70.

U.S. stocks were supported by Kraft Foods Inc's (KFT.N) bid for Britain's Cadbury Plc CBRY.L, a bid that comes on the heels of Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) deal last week to buy Marvel Entertainment Inc MVL.N for $4 billion.

Merger and acquisition activity may signal to investors that some shares are considered inexpensive, and buoy hopes that more deals are on the horizon.

DOLLAR AND COMMODITIES

The weaker dollar helped gold XAU= rise above $1,000 an ounce and oil prices gain $3 a barrel.

U.S. crude oil CLc1 prices rose more than 4 percent to $71.33 a barrel as investors went on a buying spree, fueling commodity-price inflation.

Gold jumped more than 1 percent to $1,007.45 an ounce, its highest since March 2008 and above the $1,000 per ounce level, carried by a wave of pent-up technical momentum and dollar weakness.

The euro EUR= rose as high as $1.4507, according to Reuters data, up more than 1 percent on the day against the dollar and its strongest since December.

Renewed concern over the dollar's long-term status as the world's reserve currency sparked by a United Nations agency report on Monday and options-related euro buying also fueled the broad-based dollar selling. [ID:nL7696421]

Some in the market cited persistent talk this week that China could be diversifying a small part of its $2 trillion reserves into gold. Others noted that surging gold prices might encourage another wave of speculative dollar selling.

Some investors were also seeing the spike in gold as a warning signal to stock market bulls and were fretting about the result of central banks and governments pumping billions of dollars into banking systems to boost growth.

U.S BONDS

U.S. government bond prices were mixed ahead of the reopen issue of 10- and 30-year securities sale on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

By midday, the benchmark 10-year Treasury note US10YT=RR was trading 3/32 lower in price for a yield of 3.45 percent, up from 3.44 percent late Friday, while the 30-year bond US30YT=RR was trading 4/32 lower in price for a yield of 4.28 percent, up from 4.27 percent Friday.

U.S. markets were closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top shares closed up 0.2 percent at 977.75 in a choppy session.

The index has rallied 51 percent since hitting a low in early March but it is still down 16 percent from mid-September 2008 before Lehman's collapse.

Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 closed up 0.7 percent. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Gaunt in London and Vivianne Rodrigues, Ellen Freilich, Robert Gibbons, and Leah Schnurr i New York; Editing by James Dalgleish)