Dollar hits 14-year high, U.S. stocks close at record highs
The dollar hit a 14-year high on Tuesday as the yen slid after the Bank of Japan stuck to its ultra-loose monetary policy, while U.S. stock indexes touched record highs as the rally in riskier assets since the U.S. election looked set to continue.
On Wall Street, the Dow neared the 20,000 level .DJI as reassurance over Italy’s plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21 billion) to rescue its troubled banks offset risk aversion following attacks in Turkey and Germany a day earlier.
“Investors have become so fast in digesting bad news, and this explains the resilience in financial markets,” said Hussein Sayed, chief market strategist at FXTM.
U.S. stocks have rallied since the Nov. 8 election, with the S&P 500 rising nearly 6 percent on bets that President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for deregulation and infrastructure spending will give a boost to business.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 85.04 points, or 0.43 percent, to 19,968.1, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 6.81 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,269.34 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 19.93 points, or 0.37 percent, to 5,477.38.
Both the Dow and Nasdaq hit all-time intraday highs.
European shares .FTEU3 steadied, with the pan-European FTSE Euro 300 adding 0.3 percent. Emerging market shares were flat .MSCIEF while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS ended down 0.3 percent.
China’s CSI 300 index .CSI300 slid 0.6 percent on Beijing’s move to tighten supervision of shadow banking activities and on liquidity concerns, while Japan’s Nikkei .N225 closed up 0.5 percent after a late BOJ-linked rally. [.T]
The dollar .DXY rose, tracking U.S. bond yields higher US10YT=RR, as the strong appetite for risk assets pushed traders out of bonds and into stocks. Positive comments on Monday from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on the state of the U.S. labor market also boosted the greenback.
“She didn’t use the opportunity to take the market back from being overly hawkish,” said UBS currency strategist Constantin Bolz, in Zurich. “Maybe there were some people who … thought they would hold off from further dollar longs until she spoke, in case she were to row back.”
The dollar rose almost half a percent against a basket of major currencies to 103.65 .DXY, the highest level since December 2002. [FRX/]
Its gains were strongest against the yen, which slid around 1 percent after the Bank of Japan, shrugging off the yen’s recent slump, said it would keep monetary policy loose.
