Stocks hovered near a record high on Tuesday, supported by strong economic data from China and the United States, while currency and bond markets paused for breath after a month of rapid gains in the dollar and Treasury yields.
World equities briefly touched an alltime peak in Asia as 1 gains in techheavy Taiwans market and Australias miner and bank heavy bourse followed rises on Wall Street.
Profittaking pushed Japans Nikkei down 1 and dragged on the Shanghai Composite, though European futures rose ahead of the first trading session after Easter.
FTSE futures and EuroSTOXX 50 futures climbed 0.8. The SP 500 closed Monday at a record peak and futures dipped 0.2 on Tuesday. .N
On the heels of a bumper U.S. jobs report on Good Friday, March data showed services activity hit a record high. Chinas service sector has also gathered steam with the sharpest increase in sales in three months.
On aggregate, its good for the global economy and therefore thats a justification to move into more cyclicalsensitive FX pairs and to buy stocks in general, said Kyle Rodda, market analyst at brokerage IG in Melbourne.
Yields havent budged much and so tech stocks have outperformed, he said.
The yield on benchmark 10year U.S. Treasuries fell 1.7 basis points to 1.6897, while the U.S. dollar has mostly missed out on a big bounce from the strong data and held at 1.1810 per euro after posting its steepest drop in weeks.
Elsewhere, Credit Suisse sought to draw a line under its exposure to…