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* Risk currencies gain as uncertainty retreats
* Vaccine could be released by mid-December
* Trump, government officials nod to formal Biden transition
* Bitcoin hits 19,000
* For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets,
click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window.
By Lawrence White and Julie Zhu
LONDON/HONG KONG, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Stocks, oil and risk
currencies, including bitcoin, gained on Tuesday as U.S.
President-elect Joe Biden got the formal go-ahead to begin his
transition to the White House.
The world's most popular cryptocurrency rose 3%
to near its record high, leading a surge in risk appetite as the
European STOXX 600 index climbed 0.6% and Brent
crude rose to its highest level since March at $46.52 a
barrel. Safe-haven assets such as gold fell.
After weeks of legal challenges to the election results,
U.S. General Services Administration chief Emily Murphy wrote to
Biden on Monday informing him the formal handover process could
begin.
President Donald Trump tweeted that he had told his team "do
what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols", an
indication he was moving towards a transition.
"Markets have been constrained by very high levels of
uncertainty on the U.S. political front and around vaccines for
weeks, so with those two going away investors are considering
the prospect of a return to normality in 2021," said Emmanuel
Cau, head of European equity strategy at Barclays.
Reports that Biden plans to nominate former Federal Reserve
Chair Janet Yellen to become the next Treasury Secretary further
boosted U.S. stocks on expectations she would pursue more
conventional policies than the departing Steven Mnuchin.
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.8% in European
trading hours, putting the 49-country MSCI world stocks index on
course to set a record high later.
Later on Tuesday, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala
Harris are expected to formally introduce their appointments to
critical national security and foreign policy positions in
Wilmington, Delaware.
Japan's Nikkei jumped 2.5% to its highest level
since May 1991 overnight, with energy, real estate and financial
shares leading the advance.
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan had ticked
up 0.4%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was 1.26% stronger,
touching its highest level in almost nine months, with energy
stocks leading the pack there.
Chinese blue chips were an outlier among positive
Asian shares, edging down 0.6%, as investors booked profits
following recent strong gains.
RISK ON
AstraZeneca and Oxford University said on Monday
that their COVID-19 vaccine, which is cheaper to make, easier to
distribute and faster to scale up than its rivals, could be as
much as 90% effective.
The progress made on COVID-19 vaccines helped drive risk
appetite, as investors looked past short-term economic pain from
the pandemic to a brighter 2021.
The South African rand and the Russian rouble
extended this week's winning run. MSCI's index of emerging
markets equities held the 32-month high reached in the
previous session.
The New Zealand dollar was also among the currency
gainers, rising as much as 0.9% to a two-year high of $0.6986 as
its central bank said house prices, which have been climbing
higher this year, could be included in its inflation basket.
The euro was gaining towards $1.19 again and the
dollar index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of
six major currencies, nudged down to 92.242.
Bitcoin broke past $19,000 for the first time in
nearly three years, as demand for assets perceived as resistant
to inflation grows.
Also spurred on by the vaccine hopes, oil reached levels not
seen since before the coronavirus pandemic began to spread in
March.
Brent crude futures rose 39 cents, or 0.9%, to
$46.45 a barrel to add to a more than 20% surge this month. U.S.
West Texas Intermediate crude added 46 cents, or 1.1%, to
$43.52.
"Progress on developing and distributing a vaccine de-risks
the path back to normal for oil markets," said Stephen Innes,
chief global markets strategist at financial services firm Axi.
SHORT-TERM PAIN
Amid the gains on Tuesday, however, were some reminders of
how the COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting economic pain. Germany's
gross domestic product grew by a record 8.5% in the third
quarter, but the Ifo institute's survey of business morale
pointed to fears of a recession to come as the index fell to
90.7 from a downwardly revised 92.5 in October.
The Turkish lira fell almost 1.5% to trade at 7.9899
per dollar, its weakest since Nov. 11, as new coronavirus
restrictions began and investors look for signs of sustained
central bank support.
In the bond markets, the yield on the U.S. benchmark 10-year
notes rose slightly to 0.87% as did those on most
European government bonds. Germany's 10-year yield was up 1
basis point to -0.58% in morning trade.
Gold fell 1% to $1,814 an ounce, having dropped 10%
this month.
(Reporting by Lawrence White, Julie Zhu and Katanga Johnson;
editing by Shri Navaratnam, Philippa Fletcher, Nick Macfie,
Larry King
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