London (AFP) – Stock markets mostly climbed on Wednesday as investors digested a wave of company earnings that have broadly surpassed expectations, while assessing the chances of a US-Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. A few minutes into trading on Wall Street, the Dow was up 1.2 percent at 54,592.44 points, while the broader S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq both gained, despite a 12 percent fall for Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Musk’s rocket and satellite company slid after posting its first quarterly earnings report, amid questions on what returns huge investments in artificial intelligence will ultimately produce. While revenues jumped 92 percent, investors focused on the more than $18 billion in SpaceX spending during the quarter.
In Europe, London, Paris, and Frankfurt all made modest gains around two hours from the close, as oil prices edged slightly higher after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said they had attacked a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea. Frankfurt and Paris had joined Madrid and Milan in hitting fresh highs earlier in the session. London’s FTSE 100 index was weighed down by a six-percent drop in HSBC shares as analysts said investors were disappointed by the size of the bank’s share buyback announced Tuesday. However, Swiss resources giant Glencore rose almost four percent in London after it reported a return to profit in the first half of the year.
Asian equities benefited from a recent revival in technology stocks after a month-long rout, tracking gains on Wall Street on Tuesday that sent both the Dow and the S&P 500 to new records. Seoul, which has been at the forefront of extreme volatility in the tech sector over the past month, saw Tokyo up more than three percent, while Hong Kong and Shanghai also recorded gains.
Oil ticked higher after falling sharply on Tuesday, after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a deal could be reached imminently with Tehran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic. But “fresh attacks and threats from the Houthi rebels on Saudi’s oil exports from the Red Sea” rattled confidence in a lasting Hormuz deal, said analysts at DNB Carnegie. Investors are also keeping tabs on this week’s release of US jobs data that should provide a fresh idea about the state of the economy and guide the Federal Reserve as it considers its next move on interest rates.
**Key figures around 1345 GMT:**
– New York – DOW: UP 1.2 percent at 54,592.44 points
– New York – S&P 500: UP 0.7 percent at 7,791.15
– New York – NASDAQ Composite: UP 0.6 percent at 26,731.94
– London – FTSE 100: UP 0.4 percent at 10,919.78
– Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.1 percent at 8,678.91
– Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.2 percent at 26,250.25
– Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 3.7 percent at 66,300.44 (close)
– Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.2 percent at 25,915.82 (close)
– Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.5 percent at 3,878.43 (close)
– Seoul – Kospi: UP 3.8 percent at 6,598.26 (close)
**Currency and commodity updates:**
– Dollar/yen: DOWN at 157.61 yen from 157.72 yen on Tuesday
– Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1551 from $1.1533
– Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3472 from $1.3453
– Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.74 pence from 85.73 pence
– Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.0 percent at $80.11 per barrel
– West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.5 percent at $76.15 per barrel
© 2024 AFP
