Asian markets rallied on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei 225, Australia's S&P/ASX 200, India's Nifty 50, and China's indices all closing higher. Despite a small dip in commodities, world stocks reached a record high, fueled by hopes of U.S. interest rate cuts. However, European markets bucked the global trend, edging lower due to disappointing earnings.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 indices rose to fresh record highs during morning trading on Wednesday following a broadly in-line inflation report and cooler-than-expected retail sales data for April, as traders increased their rate cut bets.