GLOBAL stocks rallied yesterday, buoyed by AI optimism, while oil prices edged higher amid rising uncertainty over a possible deal to end the US-Iran war.
US President Donald Trump said talks with Iran continued. Iran is reviewing a proposed agreement with the US to halt their war but has not communicated with Washington for a few days, Iranian media reported yesterday.
Brent crude futures rose nearly 1 per cent to around $96 a barrel.
Anthropic said on Monday it had confidentially filed for a US initial public offering, edging ahead of rival OpenAI in a closely watched race to reach public markets. Google parent Alphabet is also seeking to raise $80 billion in equity to fund the expansion of its AI infrastructure.
“This speaks to the huge sums involved in keeping pace in the AI arms race. It represents a significant shift from a period of bumper free cash flow to going cap in hand to the markets to help fund its expansion,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said.
On the economic front, US job openings, a measure of labour demand, increased more than expected in April, hitting the highest level in nearly two years, according to Labour Department data yesterday. That came after data showed on Monday that US manufacturing beat expectations to hit a four-year high, likely driven by firms front-loading orders amid rising prices and supply concerns linked to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
“The jobs data was significantly higher than expected and you would think that it would have boosted rates but they didn’t go up,” said Gerry Sparrow, chief investment officer at Sparrow Capital Management.
“Employment is strong, which is a good thing for consumer spending. So I think the market is healthy because of the jobs data.”
On Wall Street, all three indexes were trading higher after losing ground in early trade. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.23pc, the S&P 500 rose 0.13pc, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.07pc.
Europe’s STOXX 600 was up 0.66pc, as a strong forecast from chipmaker STMicroelectronics lifted technology stocks.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe was up 0.38pc after hitting a fresh record high. In Taipei, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company had enough supply to support strong growth in central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), but he acknowledged supply constraints remained a concern.
In currency markets, the dollar edged slightly lower. The euro was down 0.02pc on the day at $1.1628.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.17pc against the greenback to 159.91 per dollar. Sterling strengthened 0.09pc to $1.3463.
Data showed euro zone core inflation at 2.5pc year-on-year in May, above expectations of 2.4pc and April’s 2.1pc.
Money markets price in a quarter-point European Central Bank rate hike this month, with at least one more by year-end.
The yield on the benchmark US 10-year notes fell 1.6 basis points to 4.461pc. The yield on the benchmark German 10-year Bunds fell 4 basis points to 2.973pc.
Gold rose 0.15pc to $4,490.16 an ounce
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