World shares positive during first week of 2018

Throughout the first week of 2018, world shares have risen and several benchmarks have broken records. With the world’s largest economies all growing healthily at once and central banks moving slowly to tighten policy, investors have poured money into risk assets. Equity optimism has been fuelled by U.S. tax cuts, healthy corporate profits and strong manufacturing figures worldwide.

European shares scored their best week since last April on Friday, with the pan-European STOXX 600 closing up 0.93 percent and holding at a twomonth high. Euro zone blue chips gained 1.09 percent on the day, notching the best performance since April.

Switzerland’s blue-chip SMI hit an all-time high, rising 0.50 percent, and Britain’s FTSE 100 also sailed to a new record and closed up 0.37 percent.

Euro zone stocks were set for a weekly gain of 2.7 percent.

U.S. jobs numbers on Thursday showed U.S. private employers added more jobs than expected in December, propelling the Dow Jones Industrial Average past the 25,000-mark for the first time.

Non-farm payrolls increased by 148,000 jobs last month, while economists had expected a rise of 190,000. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent, compared to 0.1 percent in November.

The U.S. dollar rose on Friday, after a brief dip, after investors decided the U.S. December nonfarm payrolls report would not stop the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates multiple times this year.

Oil prices fell with U.S. production soaring. Earlier in the week, prices climbed to highs last seen in 2015, boosted by tightening supply and political tensions in OPEC member Iran. U.S. crude fell 0.82 percent to $61.50 per barrel and Brent was last at $67.69, down 0.56 percent on the day.

In commodities, zinc hit its highest in more than a decade as concerns over market tightness continued. Three-month zinc on the London Metal Exchange was last bid at $3,352.