Risk appetite return lifts stocks globally, dollar; oil dips

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street led stocks higher globally on Thursday, more than offsetting declines in Asia, as an expected strong earnings season took front seat after U.S. President Donald Trump cast doubt over the timing of his threatened strike on Syria.

The risk of clashes between Western powers and Russia in Syria over an alleged chemical attack eased somewhat as Trump reworded his Wednesday threat that missiles "will be coming" while taunting Russia for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Trump wrote on Thursday that an attack on Syria "could be very soon or not so soon at all."

 

Investors turned their focus to corporate earnings as BlackRock , the world's largest asset manager, reported quarterly profit above Wall Street estimates. Its shares were up 1.9 percent.

Analysts expect quarterly profit for all S&P 500 companies to rise 18.4 percent from a year ago, the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"Investors are looking for earnings to be the market's saviour and to help reduce some of this volatility that we've seen," said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors in Boston.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 328.7 points, or 1.36 percent, to 24,518.15, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 24.64 points, or 0.93 percent, to 2,666.83 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 72.98 points, or 1.03 percent, to 7,142.01.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> rose 0.67 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> gained 0.43 percent.

Emerging market stocks lost 0.05 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> closed 0.34 percent lower, while Japan's Nikkei <.N225> lost 0.12 percent.

The higher risk appetite as geopolitical tensions eased boosted U.S. Treasury yields as bond prices fell. The safe-haven Japanese yen also fell.

"There is less immediate concern about military strikes or action in Syria," said Jim Vogel, interest rates strategist at FTN Financial in Memphis.

"It doesn't move it to the back-burner, but it allows you to look around and trade other things and that gives room for rates to rise just a little bit from their sort of cramped or compressed levels," he said.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes > last fell 11/32 in price to yield 2.8303 percent, from 2.79 percent late on Wednesday.

The 30-year bond > last fell 20/32 in price to yield 3.0367 percent, from 3.005 percent late on Wednesday.

U.S. crude fell 0.06 percent to $66.78 per barrel and Brent was last at $71.80, down 0.36 percent on the day.

The dollar index <.DXY> was on track to snap a four-day losing streak as it rose 0.2 percent, with the euro > down 0.28 percent to $1.233.

"It's a reversal of the safe-haven trade that lifted the yen and the Swiss franc earlier in the week," said Karl Schamotta, director of global product and market strategy at Cambridge Global Payments in Toronto.

The Japanese yen weakened 0.37 percent versus the greenback at 107.21 per dollar, while the dollar was up 0.46 percent against the Swiss franc >.

Sterling > was last trading at $1.4225, up 0.35 percent on the day.

Safe-haven gold > fell from an 11-week high as the dollar edged higher and investors booked profits.

Spot gold > dropped 1.2 percent to $1,337.31 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 1.39 percent to $1,338.40 an ounce.

Copper lost 1.86 percent to $6,821.00 a tonne.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, Chuck Mikolajczak, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler)