LONDON (Reuters) – Global stocks rose for the seventh consecutive day to reach a record high on Tuesday, while bitcoin also peaked after an endorsement by Tesla Inc in the previous session caused the cryptocurrency to rise 20%.
Robust corporate profits, monetary and fiscal support from lawmakers and prospects that pandemic vaccines could accelerate a return to normal in the United States and other countries have heightened the sense of risk in recent days.
A record closing of Wall Street overnight gave Asian stocks the confidence to go even further, with the broader MSCI Asia Pacific stock index outside Japan rising 0.3%, led by Chinese blue chips, with a high 2.2%.
This helped the MSCI All-Country World index climb 0.1% to its own record, although early moves on Europe’s top indices suggested that additional gains may be more difficult to find, with Britain’s FTSE 100 stable at day.
The S&P 500 futures were also undecided, suggesting a smooth start to the US trading session.
“Reflection resulting from the US fiscal stimulus and positive vaccine news remains the main topic for markets,” wrote strategists at the National Australia Bank.
In line with the feeling of risk, oil also reached 13-month highs, helped by growing optimism about a return in fuel demand, with Brent oil rising 0.8%.
“There is a feeling that the oversupply of oil is disappearing faster than anyone thought possible,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “There seems to be a paradigm shift in the market.”
Despite this, concern remains with the pace of vaccination, the effectiveness of vaccines against new strains of the COVID-19 virus and the damage being done to economies, including the impact on the dollar of a planned $ 1 stimulus package. , 9 trillion.
This set of negativity helped to weigh more on the dollar. In relation to a basket of other currencies, it fell 0.2% in the first trades – reinforcing gold, a traditional safe haven against rising inflation, which rose 0.5%.
In more volatile cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin has moved from the previous day’s 20% high to reach a high of $ 48,216.09, before lowering its highs to trade around $ 47,000.
Still sustaining the gains was a surprise announcement by Tesla Inc on Monday that it had invested about $ 1.5 billion in the virtual currency and hopes to accept it as payment for its cars in the future.
Graphics: Bitcoin –
Reporting by David Henry in New York and Alun John in Hong Kong; edition of Lisa Shumaker, Gerry Doyle, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Larry King