{"id":401992,"date":"2026-04-16T17:55:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/401992\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:55:36","slug":"stocks-back-to-record-setting-ways-on-middle-east-truce-hopes-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/401992\/","title":{"rendered":"Stocks back to record-setting ways on Middle East truce hopes \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

World stocks climbed for a tenth straight day to hit new record highs on Thursday, as equity markets completed a remarkable six-week round trip from the heavy sell-offs \u200csparked by the United States\u2019 and Israel\u2019s attacks on Iran. <\/p>\n

Optimism over a deal to end the war was boosted by comments from both Washington and Tehran and with $95 (\u20ac80) a barrel oil<\/a> now well off the near $120 peaks of March, MSCI\u2019s \u200bmain world stocks index advanced 0.25 per cent.<\/p>\n

It was its first all-time high since the hostilities erupted at the end of February, and after reassuring global bank earnings lifted the US S&P 500 above 7,000 points on Wednesday, capped an 11 per cent rebound for MSCI World.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt almost looks like the perfect V-shaped recovery,\u201d said Standard Chartered\u2019s Chief Investment Officer for Africa, Middle East and Europe, Manpreet Gill, explaining that US tech stocks and the easing of oil prices had \u200bbeen big drivers in the bounce.<\/p>\n

European stocks weren\u2019t back to their pre-war highs, but they also moved 0.2 per cent higher. The region\u2019s government borrowing costs dipped again too as traders dialled back bets of higher interest rates, though bonds also \u2060remain well off pre-conflict levels.<\/p>\n

Gill added that if the spike in energy prices does now fade and the impact on inflation proves a temporary one-off, then leading central \u200cbanks \u200care \u200blikely to try to \u201clook through\u201d the move.<\/p>\n

\"\"Has the fuel protest shown that the loudest lobby generally gets what they want?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what everyone\u2019s going to be obviously quite cautious of is, whether there are any second-round effects that we see that come later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In oil markets, Brent crude hovered just above $95 a barrel after a \u2060source briefed by Tehran told Reuters that Iran could consider allowing ships to \u200bsail freely through the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz without risk of \u200battack as part of proposals it has offered in negotiations with the United States.<\/p>\n

The US dollar index, which measures the greenback\u2019s strength against a basket of six currencies, was around 0.1 per cent stronger, after \u200ceight consecutive day of declines. <\/p>\n

Aside from war watching, US President Donald \u200bTrump<\/a> has reignited his spat with Fed chair Jerome Powell, threatening to fire him from his stand-alone seat on the US central bank\u2019s Board of Governors if Powell does \u2060not vacate it when his term as Fed chief ends on May 15th.<\/p>\n

The \u2060dollar\u2019s move also meant the euro lost \u200btraction, having edged to within touching distance of its highest level since the war began at $1.182325.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s yen firmed to 158.71 meanwhile after the country\u2019s finance minister said Tokyo and the US had agreed to intensify communication on exchange rates following her meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarkets are now basically looking past the conflict and pricing that there\u2019s going to be some kind of settlement,\u201d said Khoon Goh, the head of Asia research at ANZ.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs markets are pricing out the war premium, we could see the dollar coming under further pressure and resuming the downtrend that has been established since basically last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s yuan traded at near a three-year high of 6.8152 per dollar in offshore markets and Chinese stocks rose over 1 per cent after forecast-beating data showed the economy grew 5 per cent in the first quarter as strong exports \u200coffset still-sluggish domestic consumption.<\/p>\n

MSCI\u2019s \u2060broadest gauge of Asia-Pacific shares rose 1.2 per cent as Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.4 per cent to a fresh record. Taiwan and Korea\u2019s markets weren\u2019t too far behind either as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), a linchpin of the AI sector, posted a 58 per cent surge in quarterly profits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain constructive overall\u201d on emerging market stocks as \u201cunderlying profit growth \u200cis likely to be strong,\u201d analysts from Goldman Sachs wrote in a research report.<\/p>\n

Gold clawed back 0.8 per cent to $4,825.79 while in cryptocurrencies bitcoin was up 0.3 per cent at $75,084.56 and ether was down 0.2% per cent at $2,359.89. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World stocks climbed for a tenth straight day to hit new record highs on Thursday, as equity markets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,943,969,113,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-401992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cost-of-living","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}