Stocks surge in stellar quarter; dollar sinks gold and yen

LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - Global stocks were headed for their best second-quarter performance in six years on Tuesday, while a resurgent dollar pushed the yen to a four-decade low and was headed for a fourth straight quarterly rise.

Within the past three months, the Strait ‌of Hormuz has re-opened gradually and haphazardly as hostilities between the U.S. and Iran receded into a fragile ceasefire, knocking 20% off the price ‌of oil. In addition, a dramatic shift in expectations for U.S. interest rates has occurred, against a backdrop of a seemingly unstoppable boom in artificial intelligence stocks.

What's behind the Federal Reserve's hawkish shift?

What drove global stocks' best quarterly performance?

The MSCI All-World index has risen almost 14% ​to record highs in the last three months, marking its best second-quarter performance since 2020.

Most of the gains have been powered by a scorching rally in anything AI-related, particularly in Asian markets, where indexes in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have logged double-digit percentage gains. The S&P 500 is also up 14% and the Nasdaq, which welcomed $2 trillion SpaceX to its ranks in June, has gained 20%.

"The one theme that

Fuente original: Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/asian-stocks-set-record-breaking-023905584.html)