NEW YORK/LONDON, Sept 18 — World equity markets rose to a fresh new peak on Thursday, while the United States (US) dollar gained against major peers, buoyed by the US Federal Reserve's (US Fed) interest rate cut, while the United Kingdom pound dipped slightly after the Bank of England (BOE) kept rates unchanged.
On Wall Street, all three indexes were trading higher, with the Nasdaq gaining more than one per cent. Intel jumped more than 25 per cent after Nvidia said it would invest US$5 billion (RM20.98 billion) in the struggling US chipmaker.
Nvidia's shares were up 2.6 per cent on the session.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.45 per cent to 46,227.50, the S&P 500 rose 0.71 per cent to 6,647.52, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.07 per cent to 22,499.15.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.81 per cent. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe rose 0.40 per cent to 980.25, topping the previous session's record.
"Today's market action is pretty interesting. The Nasdaq is up more than the Russell 2000.
"I would have thought the Russell 2000 would start to act really well in the face of what looks like two more cuts in 2025. Small caps tend to do quite well and in falling interest rates, but I think with the investment of Nvidia into Intel, it kind of has the Nasdaq maybe up just from that fundamental standpoint," said New Orleans-based Villere & Co's portfolio manager Sandy Villere.
The US Fed cut rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday, and its closely watched "dot plot" had pointed to two more rate cuts over its remaining two meetings this year, but only one additional reduction in 2026.
The yield on benchmark US 10-year notes rose 5.1 basis points to 4.128 per cent.
The BOE voted 7-2 to keep rates unchanged at four per cent while slowing the annual pace at which the BOE sells gilts it purchased between 2009 and 2011 to 70 billion pounds from the current 100 billion pounds, in line with economist forecasts.
Against the Swiss franc, the dollar strengthened 0.43 per cent to 0.792 and was up 0.71 per cent to 148 against the Japanese yen.
The euro was down 0.3 per cent at US$1.1777, while the sterling weakened 0.47 per cent to US$1.3561.
