Equities and other risky assets paused for breath on Tuesday following the previous session’s strong gains, although encouraging news on the US housing market extended Wall Street’s recent rally.

“We view the continued stream of favourable macro news, and the prospect of further improvements in the growth picture, as a support for markets and the main reason why we are still comfortable having a pro-risk, pro-cyclical bias in our trades,” said Dominic Wilson, senior global economist at Goldman Sachs.