World stocks ran higher on Thursday following their slowest quarter in a year as U.S. economic strength offset the return to strict COVID lockdown measures in parts of Europe and elsewhere.
World stocks ran higher on Thursday following their slowest quarter in a year as U.S. economic strength offset the return to strict COVID lockdown measures in parts of Europe and elsewhere.
U.S. President Joe Bidens sweeping $2.3 trillion plan to rebuild Americas crumbling infrastructure a href=/business/autos-transportation/biden-infrastructure-plan-bets-big-us-return-mass-transit-after-covid-19-2021-03-31/ read more lifted MSCIs 50-country world index a href=https://www.reuters.com/quote/.MIWD00000PUS target=_blank(.MIWD00000PUS) for a second day running while oil jumped 1.5% before an OPEC meeting.
Asian markets had seen a strong finish with a late burst pushing Chinese shares up 1.2% and Europes STOXX 600 a href=https://www.reuters.com/quote/.STOXX target=_blank(.STOXX) shrugged off Frances new lockdown order to push back towards its pre-COVID record highs.
The euro edged up too and euro zone bond yields held their ground as the European Central Banks chief economist reiterated that the ECB had no intention of curbing its support despite rising inflation.
IHS Markits Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) showed euro zone factory activity rising at its fastest pace in the surveys near 24-year history although lockdowns and supply chain issues may soon rein it in.
Inflation data on Wednesday had shown euro zone inflation accelerated to 1.3% in March from 0.9% a month earlier.
The biggest question the million-dollar question now is where is the landing zone for inflation said Geraldine Sundstrom an asset allocation portfolio manager at PIMCO.
Will it feed on itself or will it come back to a comfortable level ... this is the thing that will drive the central banks in whether they take away the punch bowl or not.
Wall Street futures pointed to early gains for the S&P 500 and other major U.S. markets while benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries were sat at 1.76% having started the year at just over 0.9%.
The dollar consolidated its healthy 3.5% first-quarter gain though it didnt seem ready to go anywhere fast.
The euro changed hands at $1.1720 after hitting a near five-month low of $1.1704. Against the British pound the common currency was flat after hitting a 13-month low of 0.85025 pound .
President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown on Wednesday while the euro zone lagged the United States and Britain in vaccination programmes. a href=/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/france-orders-schools-closed-widens-covid-19-restrictions-2021-03-31/ read more
As long as the news flow on either side of the Atlantic is more or less diametrically opposed there is really not much to be said in support of the euro Commerzbank analyst Antje Praefcke wrote to her clients.
SHIFTING SENTIMENT
U.S. markets closed out the quarter with gains - the S&P 500 a href=https://www.reuters.com/quote/.SPX target=_blank(.SPX) rose 5.8% and the Dow Jones a href=https://www.reuters.com/quote/.DJI target=_blank(.DJI) 7.8% over the three months. However the 4.1% quarterly rise in world stocks a href=https://www.reuters.com/quote/.MIWD00000PUS target=_blank(.MIWD00000PUS) was the slowest since the recovery from last Marchs meltdown began.
Risk-sensitive currencies reflected that on Thursday although the approaching long Easter weekend thinned trade. The Australian dollar fell 0.7% to $0.7535 its lowest since December and the yuan and kiwi dollar also slipped.
Australias fastest home-price gains in more than three decades last month also point to some of the side effects of ultra-easy monetary policy possibly putting pressure on central banks to curtail support sooner than they had planned.
Other signs of fragility in sentiment included the flop listing of food-delivery company Deliveroo a href=https://www.reuters.com/companies/ROO.L target=_blank(ROO.L) which fell by nearly a third on its London debut on Wednesday and nerves following the fire sale of U.S. hedge fund Archegos Capitals portfolio.
Commodities were mixed. Brent oil prices jumped 1.5% to $63.5 barrel on talk that OPEC and its allies will keep production curbs in place later in the face of resurgent COVID-19 infections in some regions. Crude surged 25% in the first quarter. a href=/world/middle-east/oil-gains-ahead-opec-meeting-output-policy-2021-04-01/ read more
Gold which pays no income hung on to overnight gains to trade at $1714 an ounce. Even so it suffered its worst quarter since late 2016 owing to the rise in U.S. yields.
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