Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, hit an all-time high on Wednesday, catching up with bitcoin’s rally and riding on news of wider blockchain adoption. The ether token, which underpins the ethereum blockchain network, rose to as high as $4,643 in Asian hours, breaching the previous day’s $4,600 and taking the week’s gains to more than…

LONDON—Global stock markets traded at fresh record-high levels on Wednesday while the dollar and U.S. Treasury yields ticked down as investors braced for the world’s largest economy to start cutting pandemic-era monetary stimulus. The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to announce the tapering of its $120 billion-a-month asset purchase programme in its policy statement at…

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq indexes opened at record highs on Monday, led by gains in Tesla and energy stocks at the start of a week packed with economic data as well as the Federal Reserve’s potential move to slow down bond purchases. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 14.09 points, or 0.04 percent,…

U.S. stock indexes eased from intraday record highs on Monday, dragged down by Microsoft and other mega-cap technology stocks, while data showed U.S. manufacturing activity slowed in October amid supply chain disruptions. All the major indexes had scaled new peaks earlier in the session, with the blue-chip Dow hitting 36,000 points for the first time….

WASHINGTON—Sales of new U.S. single-family homes surged to a six-month high in September, but higher house price are making homeownership less affordable for some first-time buyers. New home sales jumped 14.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000 units last month, the highest level since March, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. August’s…

Prices at the petrol pumps in Britain reached an all-time high over the weekend, while diesel is still a little short of its previous record, new data shows. The average UK price of petrol hit 142.94 pence a litre on Sunday Oct. 24, beating the former record, set in April 2012, by 0.46p. Meanwhile, diesel…

NEW YORK—The Dow Jones industrial average registered a record closing high on Friday and major equity indexes posted a third straight week of gains while the U.S. dollar slipped. On the day, MSCI’s broadest gauge of global shares was flat, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower. Stocks came under pressure after Federal Reserve…

LONDON—Oil hit a three-year high above $86 a barrel on Thursday driven by tight supply and a global energy crunch, although prices eased as some investors took profits on signs the rally is looking overstretched. Helping to drive the latest gain, a supply report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed crude and…

NEW YORK—The dollar dipped on Wednesday as risk sentiment improved and as investors focused on rising commodity prices and when global central banks are likely to begin hiking interest rates to fend off persistently high inflation. The greenback hit a one-year high against a basket of other currencies last week as market participants ramped up…

LONDON—Bitcoin hit a six-month high and was within striking distance of its all-time peak on Tuesday as traders bet an anticipated listing of a futures-based U.S. exchange-traded fund could herald investment flows into cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, rose as much as 1.5 percent during the Asia session to $62,991, its highest since mid-April…