London - World stocks hit a three-week high on Wednesday while government bonds fell broadly after Intel's forecast-beating quarterly results raised expectations of strong corporate earnings in the second quarter.
Resilient demand for PCs and servers helped Intel's margin and revenue forecasts blast past Wall Street expectations, allaying fears of a technology spending slowdown and sending its shares up nearly 8%.
Tuesday's upbeat news came after the closing bell on Wall Street, which rallied for a sixth straight day after Alcoa posted upbeat results late on Monday.
"Corporate figures are better than expected, and that's adding to strength and for now the corporate market has got its tail up," said Justin Urquhart-Stewart, investment director at Seven Investment Management. MSCI world equity index rose 0.5% to hit its highest level since late June. The Thomson Reuters global stock index rose the same amount.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index gained 0.4%.
Emerging stocks rose 0.8% while emerging market spreads tightened further to 296 basis points, the tightest level since mid-May.
US crude oil was steady at $77.11 a barrel.
Bund futures lost 16 ticks as safe-haven flows diminished in the face of strong stocks, and investors braced for fresh debt supply worth more than
€10bn from Germany, Italy and Portugal.
The euro held near $1.27, within half a cent of the previous day's two-month high as improving risk appetite boosted high-yielding currencies and investors welcomed a successful treasury bill tender by Greece on Tuesday.
"What we are seeing is that cash is being put back to work with all the negative news surrounding the eurozone receding," said Greg Gibbs, currency strategist at RBS in Sydney.
"Some of the risk premium that was being attached to the eurozone is being taken off."
The dollar fell 0.1% against a basket of major currencies.
- Reuters