European stock markets closed higher Wednesday after shares on Wall Street bounced back from the shock of Donald Trump's insurgent win in the US presidential race.
The Dow had dropped 0.35 per cent in the first five minutes of Wednesday trading before gradually building to a peak of plus-1.7 per cent before trailing off in the last 45 minutes of the session.
Following a similar path, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 1.1 per cent.
Wall Street had been expected to post sharp falls on Wednesday after New York investors had bet on Trump'New York's blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.4 per cent to close at 18,589.7.s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton emerging triumphant in Tuesday's election.
However, the muted reaction on Wall Street to Trump's victory resulted in shares in Europe paring back big losses run up earlier in the trading day.
After tumbling by 1.9 per cent before Wall Street opened, the eurozone's blue-chip Euro Stoxx 50 index bounded back into the black, to close up 1.09 per cent at 3,031 points.
The dollar staged a recovery after coming under pressure following Trump's victory.
The euro was down 0.7 per cent at 1.0936 dollars in late European trading.
A key safe-haven investment, gold pulled back from its earlier steep rise to trade 0.2-per-cent higher at 1.278 dollars an ounce after Wall Street's recovery.
The Trump victory is the second time in less than six months that voters have unleashed political uncertainty on global investors.
In June, markets were stunned when Britons voted to leave the European Union.
Historically, financial markets have tended to support pro-business Republicans in US elections.
But analysts say the political risks raised by the president-elect's populism and protectionist rhetoric - including condemnations of existing global trade agreements - had fuelled concerns about a Trump White House.
Throughout the campaign, Trump offered few details on issues, and uncertainty lingers over his economic agenda, including infrastructure spending, tax cuts and the growing US national debt.
One barometer of market worries about Trump's win, the Mexican peso, was down 8 per cent, after a wave of panic selling at one point sent the currency down 13 per cent to an all-time low.
Trump has threatened to tear up US trade agreements with Mexico and to build a wall to halt Mexican illegal immigration to the United States.
The more cautiously positive mood that emerged on US and European markets came too late for stocks in Asia, which fell sharply as Trump's overnight victory took shape during the Asian trading day.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 5.36 per cent to end at 16,251.54, with markets in China and Australia also posting losses.
