Global stocks rose on Tuesday, taking some heart from a series of robust earnings, while simmering hostilities between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz kept the oil price well above $100 a barrel, reports Reuters.
Traders also had their eyes on the yen after the Japanese currency briefly jumped in the previous session, stoking speculation of another round of intervention from Tokyo.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added about 0.6%, the S&P 500 rose 0.8%, and the Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 1%. Large gains came from shares of Intel and DuPont.
In Europe, the STOXX 600 rose about 0.6%, lifted by brewer Anheuser-Busch, which beat forecasts with first-quarter results, and by shares in Italian lender Unicredit, which reported record quarterly profits.
The U.S. and Iran launched new attacks in the Gulf on Monday as they wrestled for control over the Strait of Hormuz with duelling maritime blockades, not long after U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new effort to get stranded tankers and other ships ?through the vital energy-trade chokepoint. Washington said a shaky ceasefire was still intact.
Stocks and other risk assets got some respite from a modest retreat in the oil price, which edged below Monday's high around $115 a barrel.
Still, the ?renewed hostilities jolted markets and served as a stark reminder that the war in the Middle East was far from over.
In oil markets, Brent crude futures fell 3% to $110.98 a barrel, having jumped in the previous session on heightened worries about supply disruption.
Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said that "complacent" investors continue to look beyond the U.S.-Iran war and higher oil prices and are more focused on robust U.S. corporate earnings and capital expenditures.
"The risk-on attitude persists even in the face of what clearly is an array of potential problem issues," Wren wrote in an email.
Data from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed 83% of S&P 500 companies that have already reported have beaten EPS estimates and 78.2% of them have beaten revenue estimates. LSEG data shows earnings growth for the S&P 500 is now projected to top 18% in the first quarter, up from estimates of around 12.8% just a month ago.
"With no signs of slowing down, AI-driven spending will likely continue to do the heavy lifting for S&P 500 earnings growth, led by the technology sector," said Jeff Buchbinder, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial.
