GLOBAL stocks rose yesterday, taking some heart from a series of robust earnings, while simmering hostilities between the US 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.
Wall Street stocks jumped: the Dow Jones Industrial Average added about 0.66 per cent, the S&P 500 rose 0.8pc, and the Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 1pc. Large gains came from shares of Intel and DuPont. In Europe, the STOXX 600 rose about 0.7pc, 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 US 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 US 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 4pc to $109.82 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 US-Iran war and higher oil prices, and are more focused on robust US 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 83pc of S&P 500 companies that have already reported have beaten EPS estimates and 78.2pc of them have beaten revenue estimates. LSEG data shows earnings growth for the S&P 500 is now projected to top 18pc in the first quarter, up from estimates of around 12.8pc 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.
The yen was last slightly weaker on the day, leaving the dollar up around 0.4pc at 157.82, 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 0.04pc. US Treasury yields fell yesterday, with benchmark US 10-year notes down 3.2 basis points to 4.414pc.
Elsewhere, spot gold rose about 0.9pc to $4,560 an ounce, above Monday’s trough at $4,500, the lowest since March 31. Bitcoin continued its rebound, trading at $81,326, up from around $62,800 in early February.
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