World tech stocks hit a record high yesterday spurred on by an all-time peak for Apple, a 17-year top for European tech firms and news that Twitter and Netflix were set to join Wall Street’s flagship S&P 100 index.
MSCI’s global tech index scored the milestone as the FAANGs – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google – looked set to drive the technology-heavy Nasdaq to fresh highs in New York.
The upbeat mood had raised Asia’s big BATTS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung – with Alibaba notching a new high and Baidu surging 5 per cent in its best day in more than a month.
Europe got in on the act too as tech stocks there jumped more than 2 per cent in a third day of gains that took them to their highest since the dot-com boom of 2001.
“The market is being pushed up by just a few huge companies,” said Jerome Schupp, equity analyst at Prime Partners in Lausanne.
“All big names from Apple to Amazon and Microsoft are able to make huge buybacks and acquisitions, and the internal growth of most of these companies is pretty in line with expectations.”
Moves in other markets were modest or centered around growing nervousness about global trade tensions.
The dollar, the euro and yen largely cancelled each other out, but the dollar made 1.7 per cent on Mexico’s peso and 0.4 per cent on Canada’s dollar as hopes for a new NAFTA deal looked to be falling apart.
Instead, US President Donald Trump is considering separate talks with the United States’ two neighbours, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said yesterday.
There was some selling of Italian government bonds too after their rebound of the last few days and as traders digested the first comments from new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
Other euro zone government bond yields were 1-2 basis points lower, as a measure of calm returned to the market.
Germany’s 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the bloc, saw its yield drop 1.5 bps to 0.40 per cent, while the 10-year US Treasury note yield edged back to 2.91 per cent after brushing 2.95 per cent overnight.
In commodities, oil prices went sideways after falling nearly 2 per cent in the previous session on growing United States production and expectations of higher Opec supplies.
Brent crude futures dipped 15 cents to $75.13 while United States crude futures were up 19 cents at $64.95 a barrel after finishing the previous session down 1.6 per cent.
Industrial metals like copper, and zinc and aluminium were all 0.6 to 1.4 per cent higher though safe-haven spot gold was little changed at $1,291.54 an ounce after posting three days of losses.