Wall Street Stocks Mostly Rise, European Shares Fall; Oil Slips From $110

Financial markets were mixed on Tuesday: US stock markets mostly gained, while shares in major European exchanges and in Asia declined. Oil prices briefly rose above $110 a barrel before falling back after signs of further talks between Iran and the United States.

Equities

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the US blue-chip index, climbed 1.0% to 52,495.88 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 gained 0.3% to 7,712.57, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped by less than 0.1% to 26,424.82.

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 lost 0.3% to 10,733.00, Paris's CAC 40 fell 0.4% to 7,838.49, and Frankfurt's DAX 30 edged down by less than 0.1% to 25,304.42. Sentiment was also dented by news that Google's Cloud computing service suffered serious disruption at its London-based European data centre, which particularly affected British banks.

Shares also fell in Asia. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the previous evening's rebound in technology stocks on Wall Street did not carry over to Asia, as companies linked to artificial intelligence faced fresh pressure on their share prices.

Oil and gas

Oil initially rose on concerns about supply disruptions ahead of the northern hemisphere winter. Both WTI and Brent crude briefly exceeded $110 a barrel, but prices later retreated. WTI in New York fell 0.6% to $103.03 a barrel, and Brent in London dropped 1.5% to $107.91. On the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) exchange, natural gas fell 3.4% to €85.06 per megawatt-hour.

Currencies

The euro rose against the US dollar from 1.1211 to 1.1238 but was held back by violent protests in France and Italy, which pushed up French government bond yields. The pound gained against the dollar from 1.3304 to 1.3379, while the dollar slipped against the Japanese yen from 158.55 to 158.11. The euro weakened against the pound, from 84.27 to 84.00 pence.