(Changes throughout, updates prices)
By Matt Scuffham
NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Global stocks rose on Tuesday,
helped by strong corporate earnings in the United States and
Europe, while sentiment was boosted by the International
Monetary Fund raising its forecast for global growth in 2021.
Wall Street's main indexes all rose. Impressive results from
a slew of companies, including General Electric GE.N and
Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N , pushed the S&P 500 to a record high.
By 2:41 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
rose 33.43 points, or 0.11%, to 30,993.43, the S&P 500 .SPX
gained 2.15 points, or 0.06%, to 3,857.51 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC added 19.79 points, or 0.15%, to 13,655.78.
European stocks also advanced, shrugging off political
upheaval in Italy, as strong earnings from wealth manager UBS
and auto parts maker Autoliv added to a string of upbeat
corporate updates.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX closed up 0.6%,
with a rally in automakers, industrial companies and SAP
SAPG.DE helping the German DAX .GDAXI outperform.
Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 added 0.64
percent at 1,573.47.
The IMF raised its forecast for global economic growth in
2021 and said the coronavirus-triggered downturn in 2020 would
be nearly a full percentage point less severe than expected.
Italy's FTSE MIB .FTMIB rose 1.2% after Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte handed in his resignation to the head of state,
hoping he would be given an opportunity to put together a new
coalition and rebuild his parliamentary majority.
The MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS , which tracks
shares in 49 nations, fell 1.06 points, or 0.16 percent to
667.02.
After a "buy everything" rally over several months supported
by money-printing pandemic stimulus packages, near-zero interest
rates and the start of COVID-19 vaccination programs, some
investors are worried markets may be near "bubble" territory.
They point to rocketing prices of assets such as bitcoin or,
on Monday, the soaring stock of short-squeezed videogame
retailer Gamestop GME.N . "There is room for some consolidation," said Francois
Savary, chief investment officer at Swiss wealth manager Prime
Partners.
Investors were watching as the Federal Reserve kicked off
its two-day policy meeting.
"Investors don't expect the Fed to give any reason to think
they are getting closer to talking about when they will consider
scaling back QE, but nervousness is brewing on Wall Street,"
said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.
Mounting coronavirus cases and uncertainty over the timing
and size of fiscal stimulus also tempered sentiment.
Disagreements have meant months of indecision in the United
States, where new cases have been above 175,000 a day and
millions of people are out of work.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate will act alone to approve a
fresh round of stimulus if Republicans do not support the
measure, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. U.S. Treasury yields were narrowly mixed in choppy trading,
after hitting three-week lows on the long end of the curve, as
investors remained cautious about the size of a U.S. stimulus
package and the slow global roll-out of coronavirus vaccines.
Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR last fell 1/32 in price
to yield 1.0414%, from 1.04% late on Monday.
The dollar index .DXY , which tracks the greenback versus a
basket of six currencies, fell 0.226 points, or 0.25 percent, to
90.165.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS fell 11.47 points or 1.58% in Asia overnight.
South Korea .KS11 and Hong Kong HIS topped losers, each
falling more than 2%. The sell-off also caused Japanese stocks
.N225 to slip 1% and Chinese blue-chips .CSI300 to tumble
2%, their biggest one-day loss since Sept. 9.
All had touched milestone highs earlier this month.
Gold prices edged lower. Spot gold XAU= fell $-5.4215, or
-0.29 percent, to $1,849.57 an ounce. U.S. gold futures GCv1
settled down 0.2% at $1,850.90.
U.S. crude oil futures CLc1 settled at $52.61 a barrel,
down 16 cents or 0.30%. Brent crude futures LCOc1 settled at
$55.91 a barrel, up 3 cents or 0.05%.
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