London — World stocks were on course to extend a five-day run of record highs on Thursday, while bitcoin took a breather after its latest surge and Russia’s markets tumbled at the prospect of the harshest US sanctions in years.
For those following markets elsewhere it was even more hectic. Turkey was waiting for its first central bank meeting under its new governor after the last one was sacked after hiking interest rates in March. Wall Street futures were pointing higher after a mixed finish on Wednesday despite gains for bulge-bracket banks such as Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo as they got US earnings season off to a good start.
“China has now recovered enough that policymakers can afford to be more conservative and worry more about containing debt and property market risks,” its global multi-asset strategist Patrik Schöwitz wrote in a note.There were no such worries for cryptocurrencies. Despite a bumpy initial public offering for crypto firm Coinbase, the world’s biggest and best-known bitcoin was just shy of its record high at $62,614 having now doubled in value this year.
“Risk sentiment is improving”, dragging on bond yields and the dollar, said Osamu Takashima, chief currency strategist at Citigroup Global Markets Japan.