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Oil climbs on Iran comments, global stocks tick down

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Reuters NEW YORK
Last Updated : Oct 04 2016 | 1:07 AM IST

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An index of stocks across the world dipped on Monday weighed by a decline on Wall Street while oil prices rose to a three-month high after Iran's leader called on non-OPEC oil producers to support the market.

The U.S. dollar rose against a basket of its peers after strong manufacturing data, sterling brushed against a three-decade low versus the greenback and the Colombian peso fell after voters rejected a peace deal to end a more-than-50-year-old war.

Investors were on the lookout for news from Deutsche Bank, which is working to reach a settlement with U.S. authorities who have demanded a fine of up to $14 billion for the way the bank sold toxic mortgage-backed securities.

The German stock market was closed Monday but Deutsche's U.S.-listed shares were down 1.7 percent at $12.87 after hitting last week $11.185, a record low.

"Clearly, so long as a fine of this order of magnitude is an even remote possibility, markets worry," UniCredit chief economist Erik F. Nielsen wrote in a note on Sunday.

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The Dow Jones industrial average fell 71.77 points, or 0.39 percent, to 18,236.38, the S&P 500 lost 10.12 points, or 0.47 percent, to 2,158.15 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 20.52 points, or 0.39 percent, to 5,291.49.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index <.STOXX> ticked up less than 0.1 percent and the FTSEurofirst 300 index ended flat. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe dipped 0.1 percent.

Oil prices were up, taking Brent above $50 a barrel and U.S. crude to three-month highs after comments by Iran's leader exhorting the need for other oil producers to join OPEC in supporting the market.

"There's already a soft commitment from Russia that it will be part of the OPEC plan and if more non-OPEC members get on board, prices can only go higher," said Phil Flynn, analyst at the Price Futures Group brokerage in Chicago.

U.S. crude was up 0.8 percent at $48.64 a barrel and Brent last traded at $50.79, up 1.2 percent on the day.

Sterling fell 0.9 percent against the dollar to its lowest since July, touching a low of $1.2815 and slightly above a 31-year low of $1.2796 after Britain on Sunday set a March deadline to start the process to leave the European Union. It also hit a three-year low against the euro of 87.47 pence per euro .

The Colombian peso fell as much as 2.8 percent versus the dollar after voters rejected a hard-negotiated deal between the government and Marxist guerrillas to end a 52-year war. The currency ended down 1.6 percent.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, gained on data showing the U.S. manufacturing sector grew by more than expected in September. The index was last up 0.25 percent.

The manufacturing data boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates by December, sending U.S. Treasury yields higher.

Benchmark 10-year notes fell 5/32 in price to yield 1.6221 percent, up from 1.606 percent on Friday.

Spot gold prices fell $3.86 or 0.3 percent, to $1,311.9399 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong, Barani Krishnan and Karen Brettell in New York; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Lisa Shumaker)

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First Published: Oct 04 2016 | 1:00 AM IST

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