Wall St dips while European shares hit record; gold backs down

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks turned lower in choppy trading on Thursday amid a spate of mixed earnings, while waning concerns over widening tariff conflicts capped gold's string of record highs.

Meanwhile, a rate cut from the Bank of England (BoE) helped European shares scale an all-time peak.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq reversed to join the Dow in negative territory, and benchmark Treasury yields appeared set to snap their three-day slide.

"Today's market action is largely driven by the earnings that came out last night and this morning," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. "You had a totally mixed bag of earnings and slashed guidance from a variety of companies in a variety of industries."

Honeywell shares fell after the industrial conglomerate announced it would split into three separate companies and provided downbeat 2025 forecasts.

Amazon's results are expected after the bell, with the e-commerce giant under pressure to deliver on lofty expectations for cloud computing after unimpressive reports from Microsoft and Alphabet this week.

On the economic front, jobless claims, layoffs and labor costs/productivity provided a prologue to Friday's keenly anticipated January employment report.

Domestic and international political uncertainties continue to simmer in the background, while fears that U.S. President Donald Trump's approach to tariffs could escalate into a global trade war have somewhat diminished.

"We are witnessing a resilient economy ... against a backdrop of geopolitical concerns, and an expectation of some sort of chaos down the road," said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors in New York.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 290.48 points, or 0.65%, to 44,582.80, the S&P 500 fell 7.53 points, or 0.13%, to 6,053.90 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 11.21 points, or 0.06%, to 19,681.12.

European shares touched an all-time high, powered by upbeat earnings, as investors weighed the possibility of a Ukraine peace plan.

Britain's FTSE 100 also reached a record peak as the BoE cut interest rates by 25 basis points but warned it would be cautious going forward, in the face of a potential inflation uptick and geopolitical worries.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe rose 0.88 points, or 0.10%, to 872.57.

The STOXX 600 index rose 1.17%, while Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 26.54 points, or 1.24%.

Emerging market stocks rose 6.63 points, or 0.61%, to 1,102.42. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed higher by 0.62%, to 580.13, while Japan's Nikkei rose 235.05 points, or 0.61%, to 39,066.53.

U.S. Treasury yields drifted slightly higher, on course to snap a three-day slide to multi-week lows as trade war jitters subsided and investors trained their focus on Friday's payrolls report.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 1.6 basis points to 4.436%, from 4.42% late on Wednesday.The 30-year bond yield rose 0.3 basis points to 4.6447% from 4.642% late on Wednesday.

The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose 2.1 basis points to 4.206%, from 4.185% late on Wednesday.

The dollar edged higher as the Japanese yen hit an 8-week high while sterling lost ground in the wake of the BoE rate decision, after reaching a one-month high on Wednesday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro,rose 0.06% to 107.71, with the euro down 0.21% at $1.038.Against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.82% to151.35.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.82% against the greenback to 151.35 per dollar.

Sterling weakened 0.58% to $1.2433.

The Mexican peso strengthened 0.58% versus the dollar at 20.481.

The Canadian dollar weakened 0.01% versus the greenback to C$1.43 per dollar.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell 0.92% to $96,033.96. Ethereum declined 3.28% to $2,694.81.

Oil prices reversed earlier gains amid choppy trading as President Trump's renewed pledge to boost production raised oversupply concerns.

U.S. crude dropped 0.59% to $70.61 per barrel, while Brent fell to $74.29 per barrel, down 0.43% on the day.

Gold reversed its multi-session rally, which was driven by a risk-off flight to safety that drove the precious metal to a record high.

Spot gold fell 0.51% to $2,850.48 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 0.5% to $2,857.30 an ounce.

(Reporting by Stephen Culp; additional reporting by Marc Jones and Alun John; editing by Mark Heinrich and Chizu Nomiyama)