The Hillary Clinton for President relief rally will run out of puff in Australia today following Wall Street’s best day since March.
That was after markets around the world surged in relief as it looked like Mrs Clinton would win the US Presidential poll and not Donald Trump.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 surged 2.2%, wiping out much of the 3% plus slide of the nine previous days of trading, but the ASX 200 futures market could only manage a tepid 13 point rise this morning, meaning much more guarded opening than yesterday when our market was the first major bourse to react to the news that the FBI probe into Mrs Clinton had been stopped without any more action.
That saw gains in Asia, Europe and then in the US where the reaction was the loudest and most relieved of all, so far as markets are concerned.
The gains were broad across Wall Street over the day, with every sector rising. Financials, industrials and technology shares performed best but telecommunications lagged behind.
The Dow soared 371.32 points, or 2.1%, to close at 18,259.60. The S&P 500 index surged 46.34 points, or 2.2%, to finish at 2,131.52 and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 119.80 points, or 2.4%, to end at 5,166.17.
Gold skidded 1.7% to $US1,281.1 a troy ounce. The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond, rose 4.1 basis points (0.041 percentage points) to 1.727 per cent.
US oil futures rose sharply to start with, but retreated to end up 1.1% at $US44.56 for the December contract. January Brent crude in London fell 5 cents, or 0.1%, to $US45.53 a barrel.
Stock markets also posted solid gains in Europe and Asia. The Stoxx Europe 600 index jumped 1.5% – its best day since September 22.
London’s FTSE 100 index jumped 1.7% to 6,806.90, Germany’s DAX 30 index gained 1.9% to 10,456.95, and France’s CAC 40 index jumped on 1.9% to 4,461.21. Italy’s FTSE MIB bounced up 2.6% to 16,736.75.
In Asia, markets rose, but apart from Japan, it was a subdued bounce. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6%.The Hang Seng edged up 0.7% and markets in China were up around 0.3%.
The relief rally pushed the Australian sharemarket to its best day in four months, led by banks and healthcare stocks.
At close of trade the ASX 200 Index ended up 1.4% yesterday at 5250.8 points, while the All Ordinaries rose 1.3% to close at 5330.9.
