Will anything halt this global stockmarket rally?

Wall Street and the FTSE 100 have hit new highs. European stocks are looking livelier too. Global equities, measured by the FTSE All-World index, are also at new peaks. But could this be as good as it gets?

Wall Street and the FTSE 100 have hit new highs. The US bull market that began in 2009 is now America's third-longest since 1885, says Wirtschaftswoche, a German weekly. European stocks are looking livelier too, with German mid-caps (the MDAX index) hitting new records almost daily. Global equities, measured by the FTSE All-World index, are also at new peaks.

But could this be as good as it gets? A regular survey of global fund managers by Bank of America Merrill Lynch revealed that 34% the highest figure in the 17-year history of the survey thought equities were overvalued. The most overvalued region, 81% reckon, is the US, a view that is hard to dispute (see box below). Still, while high valuations certainly make markets vulnerable, and they could well struggle to keep going at their recent pace, an immediate trigger for a bear market or a nasty correction is not in sight.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.