Most stock markets around the world pushed higher yesterday on investor relief over the end of the US government shutdown, dealers said.
“A resolution to the US government shutdown has helped boost Asian and European indices,” said IG analyst Joshua Mahony.
“However, with a short-term solution in place, we will be back in the same position in weeks.”
Democrats on Monday agreed to a Republican deal that brought an end to the three-day federal shutdown – the first since 2013.
The agreement, which keeps the government running until February 8, gave an extra nudge to Wall Street’s three main indices on Monday, which all set new records by the end of trade.
They continued to push higher in trading yesterday, led by Netflix, which climbed more than 10% thanks to results reported late on Monday.
“The market capitalisation of Netflix has surpassed the $100bn mark after the company added 8.33mn new users in the fourth quarter – which was a record for the company,” said market analyst David Madden at CMC markets UK.
“Not only was the previous quarter robust, but the guidance for the first quarter is bullish too.” 
Most major European bourses gained ground after Asia extended a new year rally on continued optimism about the upcoming earnings season.
London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.2% at 7,731.83 points, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 jumped 0.7% to 13,559.60 after a key survey showed surging German investor confidence in January. In 
Paris CAC 40 lost 0.1% to 5,535.26 at close yesterday.
Frankfurt’s DAX 30 struck a record high after a key survey showed surging German investor confidence in January.
The ZEW institute’s monthly index of financial players’ economic expectations added 3.0 points to 20.4, a much sharper gain than the 0.5-point increase forecast by analysts.
Equity markets remain upbeat, brokers say, despite having surged in recent weeks on the back of a robust global economy, on hopes for strong corporate profits and expectations of a positive hit from Donald Trump’s tax cuts.
Sentiment was bolstered by a report from the International Monetary fund raising its world growth outlook and predicting at least a short-term boost from the president’s fiscal policy.
However, the dollar is struggling to bounce back against the euro as the European Central Bank considers its own tightening, while Germany is on course to end months of uncertainty and form a new government.
Meanwhile, the pound topped $1.40 for the first time since Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016.
“A renewed sense of optimism over the Brexit negotiations pushed sterling above 1.40 during yesterday’s trading session,” said Lukman Otunuga, a research analyst at FXTM online brokerage firm.

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