MSCI’s global equities gauge rose yesterday as investors awaited economic data and Nvidia’s financial results, while bond yields declined and oil prices fell following a US threat to expand sanctions against Iran.
Yields on US 10-year and 30-year bonds were set for a second straight day of declines as traders weighed the implications of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s decision last week to expand Treasury buybacks. On Monday, Bessent warned countries to cut their financial ties with Iran or face secondary sanctions as part of what had been billed as ‘economic D-Day.’
However, oil prices fell to a one-week low yesterday as traders viewed economic pressure as less of a risk to oil supplies than a military escalation.
On Wall Street, the heavyweight technology sector was poised to recoup some of Monday’s losses, ahead of the release of second quarter results from AI chip leader Nvidia after market close on Wednesday.
“Technology is stronger today after the recent weakness,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, noting that much of the boost was from Nvidia whose upcoming results are on investors’ minds.
“Nvidia has been weak and its price to earnings valuation has been down. There are buyers of Nvidia here looking for a strong earnings report. Nvidia is helping to pull up the rest of the tech market.”
The strategist also said Treasury yields were “moving in the opposite way they have been moving which is positive for the stock market,” but that the move was modest.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 61.73 points, or 0.12 per cent, to 53,479.37, the S&P 500 rose 12.47 points, or 0.16pc, to 7,665.33 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 102.64 points, or 0.39pc, to 26,082.83.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 3.08 points, or 0.27pc, to 1,148.31.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.37pc. Earlier, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed up 0.56pc at 1,642.24, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 328.34 points, or 0.50pc, to 65,856.43.
In Treasuries, the yield on benchmark US 10-year notes fell 5.55 basis points to 4.649pc, from 4.704pc late on Monday. The 30-year bond yield fell 5.04 basis points to 5.1806pc.
The two-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 3.64 basis points to 4.2pc. Among currencies, the US dollar was roughly unchanged as investors weighed Washington’s expanded sanctions against Iran and renewed efforts to ease pressure on longer-dated Treasury yields.
The dollar index, which measures the dollar against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.01pc to 98.96, with the euro up 0.07pc at $1.167.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar strengthened 0.11pc to 159.25.
In energy markets, US crude fell 3.05pc to $82.42 a barrel and Brent fell to $89.20 per barrel, down 3.22pc on the day.
Gold prices were down slightly for the day after scaling a more than three-month high earlier in the session, as the rally lost momentum near a key psychological resistance level and ahead of the release of US Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation on Wednesday.
Spot gold fell 0.28pc to $4,637.94 an ounce. US gold futures fell 0.23pc to $4,630.00 an ounce.
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