World stocks inch towards all-time high

FE Team | Published: June 10, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

LONDON, June 9 (Reuters): World shares were within touching distance of an all-time high on Monday, spurred on by the potent combination of record low global interest rates and the improving health of major economies.
European markets were on the front foot again, looking for their 10th straight week of gains after last week's bumper set of easing measures from the European Central Bank.
Asian stocks earlier touched their highest levels in nearly three years, while Wall Street was expected to start steadily, having notched another record close on Friday following bright US jobs data.
MSCI's All-World share index, which encompasses 45 countries and is generally seen as benchmark of global stocks, was up 0.1 per cent at 426.77 points, just below its 2007 pre-financial crisis peak of 428.63 points.
It has risen almost 150 per cent since the 2009 lows of the crisis but with central banks like the ECB still hosing markets with cheap money, Peter Sullivan, HSBC's head of equity strategy in Europe, said the rally was likely to continue.
"We might be sitting close to all-time highs but valuations are not stretched," Sullivan said. "We got more confirmation last week (from the ECB) that policy is going to remain very loose for a long time."
"In the US it's clear that earnings are coming back pretty strongly and there are even signs of life now in Europe ... So you put that together and it's certainly more likely that equities rise rather than fall from here," he said.
Trading was thinner than usual due to public holidays in a handful of countries including Germany and France, but the strong appetite for risk in the region was hard to miss.
Spanish and Italian bond yields, a proxy for what their governments pay to borrow on financial markets, were at all-time lows with Spain enjoying lower yields than the United States..
Safe-haven gold, meanwhile, was stuck near a four-month low and market volatility indicators such as the so-called VIC fear gauge remained heavily subdued.
Emerging markets were also performing strongly with stocks on the cusp of a one-year high and a number of key currencies on the rise.
The South Korean won touched a near six-year peak although intervention by the foreign exchange authorities capped its upside, while Malaysia's ringgit hit a near seven-month high.