Stocks steadied on Thursday, reports said, after a woeful week for major technology companies, even as global equities careened towards their first quarterly drop in two years.
Shares tracked by the 47-country MSCI index glided 0.86 per cent higher, with Facebook Inc, Apple Inc and Google parent Alphabet Inc retaking the market’s leadership mantle.
Despite equities’ gains, safe-haven bonds also advanced in price.
The volatile give-and-take during the week and quarter would seem to set the table for tense months ahead as buy-the-dip bulls look for corporate earnings to validate the market’s current levels and short-selling bears work to expose investors’ complacency.
Economic data yesterday showed United States consumer spending rising only marginally, but the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits dropped to a more than 45-year low last week.
The monthly inflation readings moderated.
Those statistics helped keep downward price swings at bay on Thursday after a turbulent start to 2018 in financial markets that is set to end one of the longest quarterly bull runs and included the biggest-ever rise in Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” the CBOE Volatility Index.
A “melt-up” that sent the MSCI’s “all-country” world share index up more than 7 per cent in January suddenly melted away as tensions over global trade escalated, turmoil deepened in the White House and market-leading technology firms wobbled on fears of regulation and other issues. The index is down more than one per cent in price terms this year.
Now, the Dow, S&P 500, FTSE, Nikkei and scores of other major indexes are all also down for the year. And there was little place to hide, with US bond returns also in the red for the quarter.
By contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 254.69 points, or 1.07 per cent, to 24,103.11, the S&P 500 gained 35.87 points, or 1.38 per cent, to 2,640.87 and the Nasdaq Composite added 114.22 points, or 1.64 per cent, to 7,063.45.
Meanwhile, oil continued its march higher. Benchmark Brent crude rose one per cent, advancing its gains for the quarter and sidestepping data the day prior showing a surprise build in US crude stockpiles.
Yesterday, many markets across Europe and the Americas were closed on the final weekday of the quarter in observance of Good Friday.