Markets rise, no alternative to owning stocks seen

Markets mostly rose on Friday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.8 percent while the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.2 percent, both closing at record highs after better-than-expected quarterly results from Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Intel.

The STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.6 percent but the IBEX 35 fell 1.5 percent amid tension over Catalonia's proposed independence.

The Nikkei 225 rose 1.2 percent to close at a two-decade high but the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2 percent after a court ruling that ousted five lawmakers left the Australian government without a majority.

Despite yet another record high on Wall Street, Brian Levitt, senior investment strategist at OppenheimerFunds, does not think that the US stock market is particularly overvalued.

“You look at the earnings yield of stocks compared to the Treasury yield, it's not clear that there's an alternative to owning the equity market,” he told Business Insider.