By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) –Global stock indexes rose on Monday as investors awaited earnings reports this week from several of the biggest U.S. tech-related companies, while oil prices dropped 6% after Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran at the weekend bypassed oil and nuclear facilities. The Japanese yen fell to a three-month low […]
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stock indexes rose on Monday as investors awaited earnings reports this week from several of the biggest U.S. tech-related companies, while oil prices dropped 6% after Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran at the weekend bypassed oil and nuclear facilities.
The Japanese yen fell to a three-month low against the dollar following an election in Japan thrust the country into political turmoil .
U.S. earnings season is in full swing, with a long list of names due to report this week including five of the biggest U.S. companies: Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Apple and Amazon.com.
The week also brings the U.S. jobs report for October on Friday, while investors are keeping a close eye on political news with the U.S. presidential election just over a week away.
Employers are expected to have added 123,000 jobs during October, while the unemployment rate is likely to have stayed steady at 4.1%, according to economists polled by Reuters.,
The election for U.S. president is expected to be close. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, was leading Republican Donald Trump nationally by a marginal 46% to 43%, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Election Day in the U.S. is Nov. 5.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields hit a three-month high ahead of this week’s data and the election. They were last up 4.4 basis points at 4.274% in afternoon U.S. trading .
It’s the calm before the storm,” said Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates strategy at Societe Generale in New York . A lot of investors are a little bit more cautious heading into the elections.
Oil prices tumbled as worries about a wider Middle East war eased. Brent futures settled at $71.42 a barrel, down $4.63 or 6.09%. WTI U.S. crude futures settled at $67.38, down $4.40 or 6.13%.
Energy shares eased along with oil prices, with the S&P 500 energy sector ending down 0.7%, while the three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 273.17 points, or 0.65%, to 42,387.57, the S&P 500 rose 15.40 points, or 0.27%, to 5,823.52 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 48.58 points, or 0.26%, to 18,567.19.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform, surged 21.6% on Monday, extending a recent rally.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 2.44 points, or 0.29%, to 847.93. The STOXX 600 index rose 0.41%.
The yen remained under pressure as the election loss by Japan’s ruling coalition raises political and monetary policy uncertainty.
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its parliamentary majority . The party, with junior coalition partner Komeito, won 215 lower-house seats in Sunday’s election, public broadcaster NHK reported, well short of the 233 needed for a majority.
Against the yen, the dollar rose by as much as 1% to a high of 153.88, the yen’s weakest level since late July. The dollar was last up 0.64% at 153.28.
Also, the dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.08% to 104.30, and the euro was up 0.19% at $1.0813.
(Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London and Karen Brettell in New York; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Sonali Paul, Gareth Jones, Marguerita Choy, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)
