Markets rose on Thursday.
The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.6 percent and the Shanghai Composite rose 0.3 percent.
Investors shrugged off news that US jobless claims unexpectedly rose to 419,000 last week.
“This economy is still in an incredibly strong rebound, corporate revenue and profits are increasing sharply, and it’s a pretty positive backdrop,” said Ron Temple, head of US equities and co-head of multi-asset investing at Lazard Asset Management.
Investors were encouraged by the European Central Bank's announcement on Thursday after its monetary policy meeting that it would maintain a “persistently accommodative” stance until it meets its target of inflation stabilising at two percent over the medium term.
COVID-19 remains a threat, with the seven-day average of new cases in the US up about 53 percent from last week, hospitalisations up 32 percent and deaths up 19 percent.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Rochelle Walensky, said on Thursday that the Delta variant “is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of”.
Still, there is also hopeful news on the pandemic front, with former FDA chief Dr Scott Gottlieb saying on Thursday that the US will see “a peak sometime probably around late August, early September” and that “this may be over sooner than we think”.
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