Markets rise as COVID-19 cases hit record

Markets were mostly higher on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.7 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 rose 1.0 percent and the Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 percent.

The World Health Organization reported on Wednesday that the number of newly reported COVID-19 cases worldwide hit a daily record with more than 100,000 new cases over the last 24 hours.

Still, investors remain hopeful that economies will recover as movement restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the diseasex` are relaxed.

“With re-openings now the vogue,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, “it seems almost assured that fundamental economic and earnings reports are headed for a period of improvement.”

Other analysts are less optimistic.

Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said in a note that stocks have already “priced in some degree of reopening success” but “consumer spending may be slower to come back than the market appears to currently expect”.

Peter Toogood, CIO of financial services business The Embark Group, told CNBC on Wednesday that the US stock market “has been expensive and remains expensive”.