Shares advance, longer-dated Treasury yields fall as markets cheer easing trade tensions
NEW YORK :Global equity markets gained on Tuesday amid signs of easing trade tensions, while longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields were set for their biggest one-day drop in more than a month, mirroring moves in the Japanese bond market.
U.S. President Donald Trump paused his threatened tariffs until July 9 on U.S. imports of European goods following a weekend call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Data showed on Tuesday that U.S. consumer confidence snapped five straight months of decline and improved in May amid a truce in the trade war between Washington and Beijing.
All three Wall Street indexes advanced, with the Nasdaq up almost 2 per cent following Monday's Memorial Day holiday. The S&P 500's 11 subsectors all gained, led by consumer discretionary and technology stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.27 per cent to 42,131.69, the S&P 500 rose 1.59 per cent to 5,895.13 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.95 per cent to 19,102.95.
European shares rose 0.48 per cent, supported by technology and industrials stocks. UK shares climbed 0.83 per cent following a holiday at the start of the week. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe rose 0.98 per cent to 878.87.
"It was good news over the weekend, at least for the market, with the 30-day extra time frame for the EU trade tariff negotiation deadline. I guess the market was happy about that," said Wasif Latif, chief investment officer at Sarmaya Partners in New Jersey.
"Then the Bank of Japan said it was not going to issue as many bonds and so the yield story looked a little bit better."
The yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries fell as much as 6.3 basis points to 4.9738 per cent, on track for the biggest one-day decline since mid-April.
The 30-year yields - at the epicentre of the market selloff in April following Trump's initial raft of tariffs - are still just below 5 per cent, near their highest since October 2023.
The move mirrored a near-20-basis-point fall in yields for Japanese 30-year debt that came after a Reuters report on Tuesday that Tokyo will consider trimming issuance of the super-long bonds, after recent sharp rises in yields.
Investors will focus on results from Nvidia on Wednesday, with the chipmaker expected to report a 66 per cent jump in first-quarter revenue.
Speeches from a slew of Federal Reserve policymakers and Friday's U.S. core PCE price index are also due, which could provide clues on the outlook for U.S. rates.
The U.S. dollar advanced against major peers including the yen, euro and Swiss franc following the decision of the Japanese authorities to curb bond issuance and improvement in U.S. consumer confidence.
The dollar strengthened 1.07 per cent to 144.37 against the Japanese yen. Against the Swiss franc, the dollar strengthened 0.66 per cent to 0.826. The euro was down 0.37 per cent at $1.1345.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro,rose 0.51 per cent to 99.46.
Gold prices fell as the U.S. dollar advanced. Spot gold dropped 1.3 per cent to $3,299.39 an ounce. U.S. gold futures lost 1.95 per cent to $3,298.00 an ounce.
Oil prices eased, spurred by worries of a supply glut after Iranian and U.S. delegations made progress on their talks and on expectations that OPEC+ will decide to increase output at a meeting later this week.
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