U.S. dollar up, yield curve flat, on inflation; stocks mixed

By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks turned mixed on Tuesday on earnings reports, with the Down Jones Industrial Average breaching the 23,000 mark for the first time, while the U.S. Treasury yield curve flattened and the dollar rose to a one-week high on increased inflation expectations.

The Dow touched a new high of 23,002.20, powered by strong earnings from UnitedHealth and Johnson & Johnson, but the S&P 500 turned negative as traders were left unimpressed by some bank earnings.

World stocks' gains petered out near record-high levels, in part because a rally in commodities helped underpin one of the most durable bull runs in recent history.

 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and rival Morgan Stanley topped analyst expectations with their third-quarter earnings, but shares of Goldman fell because earnings were fuelled by a volatile unit which has sharp revenue swings, analysts said.

European shares lost ground, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> losing 0.17 percent, though they were underpinned by solid earnings from food group Danone and education specialist Pearson and talk of a break-up of investment bank Credit Suisse .

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.17 percent.

Meanwhile, the yield spread between U.S. 5-year and 30-year Treasuries fell to its lowest since mid-November 2007, and 2-year yields > rose to their highest in nearly nine years after the strongest reading on U.S. import prices in more than a year raised inflation expectations.

The Labor Department said import prices jumped 0.7 percent last month, the biggest gain since June 2016, after an unrevised 0.6-percent rise in August.

"Market participants are kind of hanging on to a thread of hope about inflation numbers," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia.

Speculation that U.S. President Donald Trump was leaning towards nominating Stanford economist John Taylor to head the Federal Reserve also pushed short yields and the dollar higher.

A fourth day of gains for the dollar index <.DXY>, which hit a one-week high, was also supported by broad-based weakness for the euro and the pound.

"Taylor is perceived as more hawkish than Ms.(Janet) Yellen so under his potential tutelage, the central bank might lift borrowing rates more aggressively, which would bolster the dollar's allure," said Joe Manimbo, senior marker analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.

German Bunds and UK gilts had initially followed U.S. yields higher. British and euro zone inflation figures both came in strong to bolster bets on the first UK rate rise in over a decade and stimulus withdrawal from the European Central Bank.

The moves then unravelled after comments from Bank of England policymakers > that were interpreted as dovish, with the euro > and sterling > falling.

"Comments coming out (from BoE policymakers) uniformly signalled a dovish and cautious stance among policymakers and indicated a growing debate internally on the path for interest rates forward," said Neil Jones, Mizuho's head of currency sales for hedge funds in London.

Oil prices reversed course after Monday's gains as expectations of high U.S. production and exports offset concerns that fighting between Iraqi and Kurdish forces could threaten the country's crude output.

U.S. crude oil futures settled up 1 cent, or 0.02 percent, at $51.88 per barrel. Brent was last at $58.03, up 0.36 percent on the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 20.93 points, or 0.09 percent, to 22,977.89, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 0.75 points, or 0.03 percent, to 2,556.89 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 6.92 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,617.09.

Bellwether industrial metal copper dropped 1.37 percent to $7,037.00 a tonne on the stronger dollar after soaring to a three-year high on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Fanny Potkin and Christopher Johnson in London and Olivia Oran, Dion Rabouin, Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish and Nick Zieminski)