Global equities jumped to a record high amid optimism about the outlook for risk assets during a Joe Biden presidency.
The MSCI All-Country World Index rose as much as 0.5% to 595.98 on Monday, surpassing the intraday high of 595.24 set Sept. 3.
After surging nearly 8% last week in the biggest rally since April, global stocks on Monday extended their gains after Biden was declared the winner of the US election over the weekend. Biden in his victory speech promised swift action against the pandemic and an orderly transfer of power, though President Donald Trump is weighing legal challenges and has so far refused to concede.
“Stock markets have responded to the US elections with relief,” Ulrich Urbahn, head of multi-asset strategy at Berenberg Bank, said by email. “One reason for this, apart from the reduction of hedges, may have been that the election result (president Biden, divided Congress) essentially secures the status quo but with less political tension.”
Urbahn said Berenberg remains constructive on equities and optimistic on European small caps, Asian emerging-market equities and bonds amid bets that the Covid-19 vaccine approval is approaching and that the global economy will recover next year.
