London — Europe’s traders were sending European Central Bank president Mario Draghi off in style on Thursday, raising the region’s stocks to their highest in more than a year and nudging the euro towards its best month since January 2018.
Gains in Asia had included a one-year high for Tokyo’s Nikkei and saw MSCI All World index, which tracks nearly 50 countries, reach its highest since late July. Microsoft posted forecast-beating profit and revenue numbers after the closing bell, although the outlook was darkened by slower-than-expected take-up of its Azure cloud services.Alarming headlines since the first quarter of 2018 have suggested that poor Caterpillar earnings seemed to mean a recession was around the corner, RBC Capital Markets’ chief economist Tom Porcelli said, but has never managed to arrive.