The “great correlation trade” crunched back into gear on Wednesday as markets successfully negotiated the day’s important batch of data, pushing equities, oil and gold higher and forcing the dollar lower ahead of an eagerly anticipated announcement from the US Federal Reserve.

The US-based ADP employment report showed that 203,000 private sector jobs were lost in October. Although this was slightly more than the 190,000 forecast by analysts, investors welcomed the fact it represented the smallest number of job losses for the survey since July 2008.