Global stock markets hit three-month highs on Tuesday as the protests sweeping the US had no impact, especially on Wall Street, though the US dollar continued to weaken.
While stock markets ignored the worst racial protests in the US since 1968, bond and currency markets were more circumspect.
That slide in the greenback saw the Aussie dollar reach to within a whisper of 69 US cents, trading at 68.95 US cents in early Asian dealings on Wednesday, the highest it has been since the first two weeks of the year.
In the Treasuries markets, investors were hesitant to move away from the safety of US bonds which edged lower but remained near record highs. The US 10-year bond yield edged up from just over 0.66% on Monday to just over 0.68% on Tuesday.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 1.10% following broad advances in Europe and Asia and Australia.
The index remains down about 8.5% for the year to date.
The more confident tone saw overnight ASX futures trade 34 points higher by the close, indicating a solid gain this morning when the market re-opens. That was after a 15.9% or 0.3% rise in the ASX 200 yesterday.
On Wall Street, the Dow rose 267.63 points, or 1.05%, to end at 25,742.65; the S&P 500 added 25.09 points, or 0.82%, to finish 3,080.82; and the Nasdaq Composite added 56.33 points, or 0.59%, to close at 9,608.38.
Nasdaq is now less than 3% from its pre-pandemic record highs thanks to continuing gains for Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook.
Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.2% to its highest since late February and markets in Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, and China also gained as China’s central bank provided another shot of stimulus.
