The value of global equity markets soared to a one-week high on Tuesday, October 18, buoyed by rising commodity prices and a strong bounce in Europe, while solid corporate earnings helped drive share prices higher.
Wall Street rose after a raft of stronger-than-expected results from UnitedHealth Group Inc, Netflix Inc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, among others. UnitedHealth gained 6.9 percent, Netflix soared 19 percent and Goldman Sachs rose 2.2 percent.
S&P 500 earnings are now expected have increased slightly in the third quarter, reversing forecasts for another quarter of profit declines, Thomson Reuters data shows. It would be the first quarter since 2014 that both earnings and revenue for S&P 500 companies increased.
“The markets are expecting an inflection point as we move from the third to the fourth quarter, and so what they will be parsing in management guidance is for a view that earnings turn positive in the fourth quarter,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management.
MSCI’s all-country world index of equity returns in 46 countries rose 0.90 percent, while in Europe major stock indices rose more than 1 percent.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 75.54 points, or 0.42 percent, to 18,161.94. The S&P 500 added 13.1 points, or 0.62 percent, to 2,139.6 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 44.01 points, or 0.85 percent, to 5,243.84.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 1.5 percent to its highest level in nearly a week. However, the benchmark index is still down more than 6 percent year to date.
The market was helped by a 2.8 percent rally in the STOXXEurope 600 Basic Resources index, the top sector gainer, Reuters reports.
