World stocks at record high as earnings hopes offset trade angst

SYDNEY/LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters): World shares sat around record highs on Tuesday as investors hoped for the best from this week's barrage of U.S. large-cap earnings, and while President Donald Trump's latest tariff moves left stocks largely unmoved it did boost gold and silver still further.

Accusing South Korea's legislature of "not living up" to its trade deal with Washington, Trump late on Monday said he would increase tariffs on imports from Asia's fourth-largest economy into the U.S. to 25%.

Stocks appeared to take the news in their stride, with Nasdaq futures up 0.5%, as investors geared up for a slew of earnings from the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Tesla starting on Wednesday.

Even South Korea's KOSPI quickly reversed earlier losses to surge by more than 2% to a new peak, and with European stocks nudging higher too, world stocks are back to record highs.

"The Greenland story is out of the way, that cleaned up positioning and now the market can focus back on fundamentals," said Mohit Kumar, chief Europe economist at Jefferies.

"When we think about risky assets (like stocks) even Japan is a positive because that adds to fiscal expansion," he added.

Trump's threat to impose tariffs on several European countries over Greenland jolted markets last week.

The Japanese currency strengthened sharply on Friday as chatter about rate checks by the New York Fed as well as the Bank of Japan fuelled the risk of a joint U.S.-Japan intervention to halt the yen's slide.

Also to come this week is a Federal Reserve meeting. No change of policy is expected, but with a new Fed chair to be announced soon, and investors' worries about the central bank's independence, Fed meetings are even more of note for markets than usual.