Global equities put on a show Thursday, surging pretty much across the board after Donald Trump signaled the US wouldn’t retaliate militarily to Iran’s strikes against targets hosting American troops in Iraq.
On the heels of Wall Street’s dramatic Wednesday turnaround, shares in Asia catapulted to outsized gains.
Nearly all the major benchmarks in the region were higher by 1% or more with Japanese shares leading the charge. The Nikkei had what looks to be its second-best day in a year.
Emerging markets rallied the most in a month.
Not surprisingly Saudi shares rose by more than 2% as the perceived risk of an Iranian strike (or, more to the point, a Houthi strike) on the country receded – and the key word there is “perceived”.
The Tadawul All Share had fallen more than 3% on the week. Aramco looked poised to snap a four-session losing streak. The behemoth had retraced nearly two-thirds of the IPO rally before Thursday’s rebound.
It’s stacking up to be the best day for Saudi stocks since October of 2018, a volatile period when the world was still trying to sort out how to deal with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman following the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
But the real standout on Thursday are Turkish shares. The Borsa Istanbul is up more than 3.5%.
As you can see, bank shares in Turkey are nearly 6% higher on the day.
“Markets are brushing aside fears of a major escalation in US/Iranian conflict after President Trump’s comments yesterday”, SocGen’s Kit Juckes wrote. “For markets, everything really is awesome”.
