ASX200 touches new record high after strong signals from US

The ASX200 touched a new all-time high in early trade on Monday, supported by a rise in US stock futures on Sunday night as Wall Street kicked off a shortened Thanksgiving trading week.

The index reached 8462.1 after the first half-hour — eclipsing its previous all-time intraday record of 8446.4 set last Tuesday — before settling back to 8455.7 — up 61.9 points, or 0.7 per cent — at 8.55am.

It was the third all-time high in the past six days — and one expert says the rally could be just getting started.

Moomoo market analyst Jessica Amir said the global risk-on rally would probably persist until year-end, provided that economic readouts continue to come in better than expected.

Markets generally gain momentum ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and investors were pleased that US president-elect Trump has named a pro-Wall Street hedge fund executive as treasury secretary, Ms Amir said.

US small-cap stocks also outperformed last week, suggesting that “investors are feeling bullish, aggressive, and ready to take on risk,” Ms Amir added.

For the year the ASX200 has already gained 11.4 per cent so far, with roughly five weeks of trading left.

Mexican fast food chain Guzman Y Gomez was the market’s best-performer, up 5 per cent to $40.11. Mirvac, Lovisa, The A2 Milk Company and James Hardie rounded out the top five, all up more than 3 per cent.

Megaport, Tabcorp, Spark New Zealand, Bendigo and Adeliade Bank and South32 were the top five laggards.

All sectors were in the green, with real estate, consumer stocks, health care, industrials and mining all recording solid gains.

Among the local iron ore miners, Rio Tinto was up just under one per cent to $118.30 and BHP was 0.7 per cent higher to $40.45. But Fortescue left them for dust, rising 2.2 per cent to $18.70.

Mineral Resources rose the wave of optimism, climbing one per cent to $34.