US stocks rose to a record-high close on Thursday, marking the third consecutive advance for the $52tn market as promising economic data helped offset fears surrounding the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The S&P 500 stock index added 0.6 per cent, following two days of more than 1 per cent increases. Together the gains have helped reverse sharp falls on Monday and late last week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed 0.8 per cent higher, leaving the index up more than 3 per cent for the week.
The record follows a volatile month of trading. Stocks have swung dramatically since the discovery of the Omicron strain in late November, and a recent shift from global central banks to tighten monetary policy. US markets will be closed on Friday for the Christmas holiday.
Investors on Thursday digested data that suggested the world’s largest economy remained resilient. American consumers showed they were still spending at a rapid rate, with the US core personal consumption expenditure index, which strips out volatile items such as food and energy costs, leaping 4.7 per cent year on year in November. This was marginally higher than the 4.5 per cent expected by economists polled by Reuters.
US first-time jobless claims, meanwhile, registered 205,000 last week, unchanged from a week earlier, in a sign that lay-offs remained at low levels despite concerns over the resurgence of the pandemic.
New orders of US durable goods in November increased 2.5 per cent from the previous month, beating the 1.6 per cent forecast by analysts.
Across the Atlantic, the continental Stoxx Europe 600 index and Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax both closed up 1 per cent, while London’s FTSE 100 benchmark climbed 0.4 per cent, taking its rise so far for December to more than 4 per cent, its best monthly performance since November 2020.
“The recent improvement in global investor risk sentiment reflects less concern over the potential disruptive impact from the rapid spread of the new Omicron Covid variant on the outlook for global growth next year,” said Lee Hardman, currency analyst at MUFG.
While several countries have tightened restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, “market participants already seem to have made up their minds that the threat of the quick advancing Omicron variant is manageable, for now”, added Bas van Geffen, strategist at Rabobank.
That view has been supported by data from South Africa, Denmark and the UK showing that a lower share of people infected with the Omicron variant are likely to require hospital treatment compared with cases of the Delta strain.
This improved sentiment helped spur a modest sell-off in haven assets such as government debt. The yields on benchmark 10-year US and German bonds — which move inversely to price — climbed 0.04 percentage points to 1.49 per cent and minus 0.26 per cent, respectively.
The dollar barely budged against a basket of half a dozen global currencies, slipping 0.1 per cent to one-week low, which Hardman said reflected the more upbeat mood among investors.
In Asia, China’s CSI 300 index rose 0.7 per cent on Thursday even after the country locked down 13m people in the central city of Xi’an in an attempt to slow the virus ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Ultra-loose financial conditions have also supported markets, which have remained easy despite the US Federal Reserve and several other central banks this month adopting a more aggressive stance in tackling surging inflation that has swept across global economies.
Still, investors expect a potentially bumpy ride over the next week as holiday-thinned trading exacerbates any volatility caused by news on the virus.
US stocks close at a record high as Omicron fears abate
Pinoy Variant