Stocks gain as upbeat wall St earnings lift outlook

Global stocks rose and Treasury yields dipped with major Wall Street benchmarks hitting fresh records. It is buoyed by a robust start to the U.S. corporate earnings season and an improving economic outlook. A large proportion of S&P 500 companies are due to report. This includes technology heavyweights Facebook, Apple Inc, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet. The Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 closed at record highs as traders looked ahead to earnings reports.

Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital in New York said that the number one thing is that earnings are better-than-expected. As they approach the end of the year, they are going to see forward guidance being lifted, which would make the market multiple more reasonable. The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 50 countries, rose 0.28%. The pan-European STOXX 600 index gained 0.07%. U.S. Treasury yields were lower as uncertainty about when the Federal Reserve would raise rates to curb rising inflation weighed on market sentiment.

The benchmark U.S. 10-year yield fell to 1.6325%. The U.S. dollar rose from a one-month low and it is ahead of central bank meetings. It is boosted by the prospect of a tighter U.S. monetary policy. The dollar index was up 0.178% at 93.828. On Wall Street, the group of stocks with the highest gains were consumer discretionary, industrials, communication services and technology stocks. A string of solid quarterly earnings reports, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc and insurer Travelers Cos Inc.

Tesla, which jumped 12.66% and breached $1 trillion in market capitalization. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.18% to 35,741.15, the S&P 500 gained 0.47% to 4,566.48 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.9, to 15,226.71. Oil prices rose, as tight global supply and strengthening fuel demand in the United States and beyond supported prices. Brent crude futures gained 0.43% to $85.90 a barrel. The U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures pared earlier gains and traded lower at 0.06% to $83.71 a barrel. Gold prices rose nearly 1%. This is as a retreat in U.S. bond yields and persistent worries about inflation lifted the safe-haven asset ahead of major central bank meetings. Spot gold gained 0.85%.