LONDON - World stocks were on course to extend a five-day run of record highs on Thursday, while Bitcoin took a breather after its latest surge and Russia’s markets tumbled at the prospect of the harshest US sanctions in years.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones indexes notched record highs as upbeat earnings reports from several companies and a strong rebound in March retail sales bolstered hopes of a broader economic rebound.
At 09:57 am, ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 219.43 points, or 0.65 percent, at 33,950.32, the S&P 500 was up 30.34 points, or 0.74 percent, at 4,155.00 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 139.87 points, or 1.01 percent, at 13,997.71.
The S&P index recorded 30 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 53 new highs and 8 new lows.
The US dollar was at a four-week low ahead of March retail sales data with investors increasingly convinced that US interest rates will stay low, whereas in Europe a deluge of debt issuance lifted German bond yields to four-week highs.
Europe’s STOXX 600 opened with a new all-time high as a flurry of positive earnings offset growing worries about a third wave of COVID infections on the continent.
For those following markets elsewhere it was even more hectic. Turkey was waiting for its first central bank meeting under its new governor after the last one was sacked after hiking interest rates last month.
The Russian rouble had already fallen as much as 2 percent on reports the United States would announce sanctions later for alleged interference in US elections and malicious cyber activity.
They were set to target both individuals and entities and could also include aggressive new measures targeting the country’s sovereign debt, according to one source who spoke to Reuters.
“There has been a bit of whiplash for the rouble.” Saxo Bank’s head of FX strategy John Hardy said. “Earlier in the week it looked like the US was making overtures about a (Biden-Putin) summit and now it looks like they are going to slap on sanctions.”
Wall Street futures were pointing higher after a mixed finish on Wednesday despite gains for bulge-bracket banks like Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo as they got US earnings season off to a good start.
The mood had been subdued in Asia overnight where the Nikkei ended little changed.
JPMorgan Asset Management said in a note it was trimming its overall emerging markets exposure once again “mostly driven by a less sanguine outlook on EM Asia.”
There were no such worries for the cryptocurrencies. Despite a bumpy IPO for crypto firm Coinbase, the world’s biggest and best-known Bitcoin was just shy of its record high at US$62,614 having now doubled in value this year.
Back in the bond markets, 10-year US bond yields eased to 1.6165 percent in European trade, down from a 14-month peak of 1.776 percent reached in late March, reducing the dollar’s yield attraction.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that the US central bank would reduce its monthly bond purchases “well before” it raised interest rates.
“Risk sentiment is improving,” dragging on bond yields and the dollar, said Osamu Takashima, chief currency strategist at Citigroup Global Markets Japan.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar slipped for a fourth day to 108.90. The euro was flat at US$1.1977 as was sterling at US$1.3776.
The Australian dollar hovered near three-week highs at US$0.7716 after posting its biggest one-day percentage gain since Feb 19 on Wednesday. Its New Zealand peer was upbeat at US$0.7147, a level not seen since March 23.
In commodities, oil held near one-month highs after climbing nearly 5 percent on Wednesday as the International Energy Agency (IEA) said there were signs the massive overhang in global oil inventories was now being “worked off”.
Brent crude was up 2 cents at US$66.60 a barrel. US crude slipped 5 cents to US$63.1. Gold was 0.4 percent higher at US$1,741.8 an ounce.
