Global stock markets, on Tuesday, December 2, received a boost from strong gains in U.S. equities and surprisingly upbeat Chinese manufacturing data, the first trading day of 2018, while the U.S. dollar fell to its weakest in over three months against key currencies.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.64 percent. The index set scores of record highs and rose by one-fifth in value last year.
On Wall Street, equity indexes advanced, buoyed by gains in technology and consumer discretionary stocks.
Major stock indexes closed 2017 with their best performance since 2013. In the U.S. market, the advance came amid strong economic growth and corporate earnings, low interest rates and hopes, now realized, of U.S. corporate tax cuts.
“The first week of trading usually suggests the overall trend of the markets which we expect to be positive,” Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York, wrote in a note.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 73.3 points, or 0.3 percent, to 24,792.52, the S&P 500 gained 18.1 points, or 0.68 percent, to 2,691.71 and the Nasdaq Composite added 88.45 points, or 1.28 percent, to 6,991.84.
Shares also rose in Asia. Shanghai blue chips climbed 1.41 percent and MSCI’s 24-country emerging market stock index jumped to a multi-year high after the Caixin index of Chinese industry rose to a four-month high of 51.5 in December, confounding forecasts for a decline.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index, however, was a rare laggard and lost 0.23 percent.
The dollar index, tracking the greenback against a basket of major currencies, fell 0.32 percent. It was hampered by market expectations of a slower pace of interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve amid a tepid U.S. inflation picture.
“Investors remain skeptical about the Fed’s outlook for three additional interest rate increases this year, especially given the extremely benign inflation backdrop in the U.S.,” said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst, at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.
