Global markets rallied yesterday on expectations that the European Central Bank had moved a step closer to making billions of euros in asset purchases to jump-start the region’s spluttering economy.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 rose 1.1 per cent, while Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC 40 indices closed up 1.8 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively. The S&P 500 broke through the 2,000 barrier, touching an all-time high, and the FTSE Asia Pacific index edged up 0.2 per cent.
Investor bullishness followed comments by Mario Draghi, ECB president, at the central bankers’ summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last weekend that the ECB could use “all the available instruments”, widely assumed to include asset purchases, to stabilise price.