Daily Times

World stock markets grabbed a well-earned breather on Tuesday after a second major coronavirus vaccine boost in the space of a week had propelled them higher again and put Europe on course for its best month nearly three decades.

The pan-European STOXX 600 dipped 0.4% on the day with Wall Street set to follow, but there was little sign of an end to the November bull run that has also seen confidence-sensitive commodities and emerging markets surge.

MSCI’s main 49-country world stocks index was perched at a record high having risen 11% and every day but one this month, while China’s yuan hit a near 2-1/2 year peak in the currency markets as the U.S. dollar continued to sag.

Investors are in “full bull” mode, BofA’s monthly investor survey showed on Tuesday.

With global economic growth and profit expectations running at a 20-year high among those the bank surveyed, the “reopening rotation” back into coronavirus-hit sectors is likely to continue for the rest of the year, BofA added, although they did also recommend cashing in in the coming weeks or months.

The latest boost had come from Moderna, which said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing infection based on interim late-stage data.

The U.S.-based firm became the second drugmaker, after Pfizer, to announce promising data. The news had sent its shares up nearly 10%, though it was electric car maker Tesla in the fast lane on Tuesday, racing up 11% in premarket moves after it won a spot in the S&P 500.

Up about 450% in 2020, the California firm has become the most valuable auto company in the world, by far, despite production that is a fraction of rivals such as Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.2% overnight, a day after hitting its highest level since launching in 1987.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.4% after hitting a 29-year high the day before, but Chinese blue chips dipped as recent bond defaults hit sentiment.

“The market is assuming that we can see the end of the tunnel, that in 2022 a large part of the world’s population will start to receive access to vaccines,” said Herald van der Linde, HSBC’s head of equity strategy for Asia Pacific.