After US Congress confirmed Joe Biden as the presidential election winner, leading US stock benchmarks surged to record highs on Thursday (local time). South Korea’s main bourse also hit an all-time high in intraday trading on Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the index for 30 top-performing US firms, rose 0.69 percent to 31,041.13 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.56 percent to 13,067.48. The S&P 500, which tracks the stocks of 500 large-cap US firms, increased 1.48 percent to 3,803.79. Three of the top US stock market indices hit all-time highs.

The soaring stocks are attributable to investors’ expectations of more fiscal stimulus and infrastructure spending with the new presidency and Democrat-controlled Senate.

Some market analysts said Joe Biden’s election victory, along with Democrats’ control of both the House of Representative and Senate, bodes well for the Korean market.

“The Democrat-dominated House and Senate in the US will play positive for the domestic stock market,” said Jo Yeon-joo, an analyst from NH Investment & Securities, adding “With the blue wave, there seems to be no hurdle for the Biden administration to carry out large spending initiatives.”

Among the biggest gainers were Tesla, Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, and JP Morgan.

With Tesla’s 7.9 percent stock price surge on Thursday, Elon Musk has become the world’s richest person with his net worth crossing $188.5 billion. He surpassed Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of $185 billion.

In Korea, the nation’s benchmark Kospi continued its strong rally Friday after crossing the 3,000 mark for the first time earlier this week.

It hit an all-time high of 3,161.11, up 4.27 percent, in late trade, and closed at 3,152.18, up 3.97 percent, thanks to soaring stocks of large cap companies in electronics, internet and automotive sectors.

While hovering below the 3,100 mark in the morning, the index sharply rose in the afternoon session. 

After reaching all-time high of 90,000 won, up 8.56 percent, the market bellwether Samsung Electronics closed at 88,800 won, up 7.12 percent. Hyundai Motor Group, which is rumored to be seeking partnership with US tech giant Apple to produce electric cars, saw its stock soar 19.42 percent to close at 246,000 won. The stocks of Internet giants Kakao and Naver posted more than 7 percent jumps during the trade session.

“Those stocks in the financial and automobile sectors, which had been left out in the rally last year, seem to maintain the momentum created by the IT and platform segments,” said Kim Hyung-ryeol, a chief analyst from Kyobo Securities, in an investment report.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)