GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks gain as investors take heart from upbeat earnings, dip in oil
* US says Iran ceasefire holds despite exchange of fire
over Strait of Hormuz
* Oil prices ease but still over $100/barrel
* Wall Street stocks gain
* Traders on watch for yen intervention
May 5 (Reuters) – Global stocks rose on Tuesday, taking
some heart from a series of robust earnings, while simmering
hostilities between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz
kept the oil price well above $100 a barrel.
Traders also had their eyes on the yen after the Japanese
currency briefly jumped in the previous session, stoking
speculation of another round of intervention from Tokyo.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added
about 0.6%, the S&P 500 rose 0.8%, and the Nasdaq
Composite gained nearly 1%. Large gains came from shares
of Intel and DuPont.
In Europe, the STOXX 600 rose about 0.6%, lifted by
brewer Anheuser-Busch, which beat forecasts with
first-quarter results, and by shares in Italian lender Unicredit
, which reported record quarterly profits.
The U.S. and Iran launched new attacks in the Gulf on Monday as
they wrestled for control over the Strait of Hormuz with
duelling maritime blockades, not long after U.S. President
Donald Trump launched a new effort to get stranded tankers and
other ships through the vital energy-trade chokepoint.
Washington said a shaky ceasefire was still intact.
Stocks and other risk assets got some respite from a modest
retreat in the oil price, which edged below Monday’s high around
$115 a barrel.
Still, the renewed hostilities jolted markets and served as
a stark reminder that the war in the Middle East was far from
over.
In oil markets, Brent crude futures fell 3% to $110.98 a
barrel, having jumped in the previous session on heightened
worries about supply disruption.
Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at the Wells
Fargo Investment Institute, said that “complacent” investors
continue to look beyond the U.S.-Iran war and higher oil prices
and are more focused on robust U.S. corporate earnings and
capital expenditures.
“The risk-on attitude persists even in the face of what
clearly are an array of potential problem issues,” Wren wrote in
an email.
Data from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed 83% of S&P
500 companies that have already reported have beaten EPS
estimates and 78.2% of them have beaten revenue estimates. LSEG
data shows earnings growth for the S&P 500 is now projected to
top 18% in the first quarter, up from estimates of around 12.8%
just a month ago.
“With no signs of slowing down, AI-driven spending will
likely continue to do the heavy lifting for S&P 500 earnings
growth, led by the technology sector,” said Jeff Buchbinder,
chief equity strategist at LPL Financial.
YEN INTERVENTION WATCH
The yen was last slightly weaker on the day, leaving the
dollar up 0.3% at 157.73, after Monday’s short-lived
surge that saw the Japanese currency touch an intraday high of
155.69.
Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama on Monday spoke out
against speculative trading in foreign exchange, leaving market
participants on alert for further intervention after sources
told Reuters Tokyo intervened to prop up its ailing currency on
Thursday.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a
basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, edged down
0.08%.
U.S. Treasury yields fell on Tuesday, with benchmark U.S.
10-year notes down 2.8 basis points to 4.418%.
Elsewhere, spot gold rose about 1.2% to $4,575 an ounce,
above Monday’s trough at $4,500, the lowest since March 31.
Bitcoin continued its rebound, trading at $81,544, up
from around $62,800 in early February.
(Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne in Boston, Amanda Cooper in
London and Rae Wee in Singapore; Editing by Nick Zieminski and
Keith Weir)
Commodities Forex Market News Economic News Finance and Instruments Intel 
Dupont De Nemours 
AB InBev 
UniCredit
