By Sinéad Carew and Marc Jones
NEW YORK/LONDON, Aug 25 (Reuters) – MSCI’s global equities gauge rose on Tuesday as investors waited for economic data and Nvidia’s financial results, while bond yields declined and oil prices fell following a U.S. threat to expand sanctions against Iran.
Yields on U.S. 10-year and 30-year bonds showed a second straight day of declines as traders weighed the implications of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s decision last week to expand Treasury buybacks.
On Monday, Bessent had warned countries to cut their financial ties with Iran or face secondary sanctions as part of what had been billed as “economic D-Day.” However, oil prices fell to a one-week low on Tuesday as traders viewed economic pressure as less of a risk to oil supplies than a military escalation.
On Wall Street, the heavyweight technology sector recouped some of Monday’s losses, ahead of the release of second-quarter results from AI chip leader Nvidia after market close on Wednesday.
NVIDIA RESULTS PROVIDE A FOCUS
“Technology is stronger today after the recent weakness,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, noting that much of the boost was from Nvidia whose upcoming results are on investors’ minds.
“Nvidia has been weak and its price-to-earnings valuation has been down. There are buyers of Nvidia here looking for a strong earnings report. Nvidia is helping to pull up the rest of the tech market.”
The strategist also said Treasury yields were “moving in the opposite way they have been moving which is positive for the stock market,” but that the move was modest.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 160.24 points, or 0.30%, to 53,577.40, the S&P 500 rose 24.42 points, or 0.32%, to 7,677.28 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 171.11 points, or 0.66%, to 26,151.30.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 4.77 points, or 0.42%, to 1,150.00.
Earlier, the pan-European STOXX 600 index closed up 0.35%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed up 0.56% at 1,642.24, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 328.34 points, or 0.50%, to 65,856.43.
In Treasuries, the yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell 7.92 basis points to 4.625%, from 4.704% late on Monday while the 30-year bond yield fell 6.9 basis points to 5.162%.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 5.98 basis points to 4.176%.
Among currencies, the U.S. dollar was virtually unchanged as investors weighed Washington’s expanded sanctions against Iran and renewed efforts to ease pressure on longer-dated Treasury yields.
