World equity market benchmarks rose on Thursday as Wall Street relied on hopes that the Omicron Covid-19 variant would prove mild and would not hurt the U.S. economic recovery while helping the dollar soar in trading.
The number of U.S. citizens filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose less than expected last week while layoffs fell to an 8-1/2-year low in November signaling tighter U.S. labor market conditions during a booming economy.
The Dow’s blue -chip sham posted its best daily profit percentage since March with Boeing Co providing the biggest increase after Chinese aviation authorities gave approval to aircraft maker 737 MAX.
The MSCI worldwide index closed 0.75% after Wall Street rose.
The Dow Jones Industrial average was up 1.82%, the S&P 500 was up 1.42%and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.83%.
While U.S. investors see Omicron as not a major concern, European stocks declined after several countries increased restrictions to curb the spread of the variant and raised concerns about its impact on economic recovery in Europe.
The STOXX 600 European broad index fell 1.15%.
The dollar index, which tracks the value of the dollar against a group of 6 other currencies, rose 0.096% at 96.142.
The euro was down 0.19% at $ 1.1298 while the Japanese Yen traded up 0.36% at $ 113.1600.
US treasury yields rose after investors returned to riskier assets with 10 -year treasury notes up 1.5 basis points at 1.449%.
The 10-year TIPS rate of return on capital ending at 2.479% has shown the market is seeing an average inflation of about 2.48% annually for the next decade or lower than recently expected.
US crude futures rose 93 cents a barrel while Brent oil futures added 80 cents at $ 69.67 a barrel.
US gold futures fell 1.2% at $ 1,762.70 an ounce after investors followed the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) plan to tighten monetary policy faster than expected.
