US stocks surge to record highs

The S&P 500 notched up eight straight record closes in a row recently, while the small-cap Russell 2000 index saw its first record close since March.

US Capitol building
The US Congress has finally approved a $1.2trn infrastructure bill
(Image credit: © Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Central banks may have made bond markets wobble, but stocks are still going from strength to strength, says Nicholas Megaw in the Financial Times. Strong US third-quarter earnings have put worries about inflation on the back burner. Profits at S&P 500 firms rose by about 40% year-on-year between July and September. Sales increased by roughly a fifth.

“Large US companies are broadly managing to weather the surge in the prices of raw materials, supply chain bottlenecks and shortages in the labour market,” say Joe Rennison and Colby Smith in the same paper. Corporate profit margins have fallen back slightly, but by much less than analysts had been expecting.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.