Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Copper rose to a 15-month high, mining companies led an advance in stocks and currencies of commodity producers strengthened as investors anticipated faster economic growth next year.

Copper advanced 2.3 percent at 12:04 p.m. in London, extending its 2009 gain to 136 percent. Sugar rose to a two- decade high. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index of European shares added 0.4 percent as the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index recouped its losses since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse in September 2008. The South African rand strengthened against all 16 of its most-traded counterparts.

Barton Biggs, a hedge-fund manager at Traxis Partners LP, and Marc Faber, publisher of the “Gloom Boom & Doom” newsletter, predict that stocks and the dollar will extend gains in 2010. Bill Miller has made 43 percent this year in his Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust fund, beating 93 percent of similar funds by betting on a recovery. The decrease in U.S. home prices probably moderated in October and consumer confidence improved, economists said before reports today.

“History would suggest that after such a severe economic shock like we’ve just had the odds are that we’re going to have a pretty good burst of growth in 2010, 2011,” Biggs said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t have a further rally in the dollar and a further rally in stocks. And my guess is that the next move in both could be on the order of 10 percent.”

Mining Strikes

Copper rose $165 to $7,235 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange, which was closed yesterday for a national holiday. The metal is heading for its best year since at least 1986. Officials in China, the world’s biggest copper user, said the economy expanded more than 8 percent in 2009. Workers at Chile’s Altonorte copper smelter went on strike yesterday and employees at the Chuquicamata copper mine voted to do the same.

White sugar advanced as much as 1.9 percent to $707.20 a metric ton on the Liffe exchange in London, its highest since at least 1989. Crude oil for February delivery fell 0.5 percent to $78.37 a barrel in New York trading. Gold for immediate delivery fell 0.2 percent.

Mining stocks including Vedanta Resources Plc and Xstrata Plc led the 0.5 percent gain in the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index. The MSCI World Index of equities in 23 developed nations advanced 0.4 percent. China Railway Construction Corp. and Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Co. offered C$679 million ($651 million) for Canada’s Corriente Resources Inc., the owner of copper deposits in Ecuador.

U.S. Futures

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.4 percent before reports on U.S. home prices and consumer confidence. Property values in 20 metropolitan areas probably fell 7.2 percent in October from a year earlier, the smallest 12-month drop since 2007, according to the median forecast of 31 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The Conference Board’s consumer sentiment gauge probably improved in December for a second month.

Oil-producing nations were the biggest gainers in emerging market stocks, with Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index advancing 0.6 percent. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index fell 0.1 percent, snapping a five-day rally.

The Australian dollar climbed 1.1 percent to 89.72 U.S. cents, gaining for the fifth successive day, and rose 1.2 percent to 82.23 yen. South Africa’s rand added 1.4 percent to 7.4121 per dollar.

Bonds Fall

U.K. government bonds declined, sending the yield on the 10-year gilt up as much as 11 basis points to 4.11 percent, the highest level in more than a year. The market was closed yesterday.

The U.S. plans to sell a record-tying $118 billion of securities this week, including $42 billion of five-year notes today and $32 billion of seven-year debt tomorrow. Two-year Treasury note yields reached the highest level since September yesterday as an investor class that includes foreign central banks bought the lowest amount of the debt in five months at an auction. The yield was 2 basis points lower today at 1 percent.

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