PrintGLOBAL MARKETS-Global stock index up slightly while gold, silver bounce
BY Reuters | TREASURY | 02/03/26 11:58 AM EST(Updates to U.S. morning session)
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Stocks rise as gold attempts a recovery
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Dollar falls, U.S. Treasury yields up
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RBA hikes rates to 3.85%; Aussie bounces
By Sin?ad Carew and Amanda Cooper
NEW YORK/ LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - MSCI's global equities gauge rose slightly on Tuesday while Wall Street's main indexes lost ground as software stocks were slammed while investors waited for high-profile earnings reports but in contrast, precious metal prices rose sharply, regaining some lost ground following a two-day rout. the U.S. dollar edged lower ?while the Australian dollar was the stand-out performer, rallying broadly after the central bank joined Japan as the only developed-world economy to raise interest rates. Commodities stocks and the dollar have whipsawed since ?U.S. President Trump's nomination of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve last Friday. While he will be under pressure from Trump to ?cut interest rates, Warsh is keen to shrink the Fed's balance sheet, which would push up bond ?yields, which is seen as ?a negative for precious metals.
But on Tuesday, spot gold
rose 5.91%
to $
4,940.99
an ounce after falling about 13% in the prior two sessions. spot silver
rose 11.17%
to $
88.29
an ounce after tumbling 6% in Monday's session ?and 27% on Friday.
"The market has been pretty worried, at least taking a hawkish ?bias to Kevin Warsh being nominated as the Fed Chair," said Jack Janasiewicz, lead portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers.
"We're finally taking a deep breath and saying maybe we overreacted, let's chill out a little bit here. We're ?seeing a little bit of calmness returning back to the markets on ?the commodity side looking ?at gold and silver."
Investor sentiment was choppy, however, with the CBOE
volatility index suddenly rallying near the end of the
first half hour of the U.S. stock market session.
In AI industry news, Nvidia
MSCI's ?gauge of stocks ?across the globe
rose 2.71 points
, or
0.26
%, to
1,046.48
.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index
was flat, after hitting a record high earlier. In currencies, the greenback took a step back after last week's rally against a range of currencies. The Australian dollar strengthened 1.02% ?to $0.7018. after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised rates by a quarter point to 3.85%, citing above-target inflation and a tight labour market.
The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro,
fell 0.14%
to
97.41
, with the euro
up 0.2%
at $
1.1813
.
Against the Japanese yen , the dollar
strengthened 0.09%
to
155.74
.
Oil prices
regained some ground on Tuesday, after falling over 4% in the previous session, as market participants considered the global supply outlook and the possibility of a de-escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions.
U.S. crude
rose 1.08% to
$
62.81
a barrel and Brent
rose to
$
66.90
per barrel,
up 0.9%
on the day. In U.S. Treasuries, yields rose slightly on Tuesday as traders evaluated possible shifts in ?Federal Reserve policy under Kevin Warsh while traders faced U.S. economic data delays due to a partial government shutdown.
The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes
rose 1 basis points to
4.287
%, from
4.277
% late on
Monday, while t
he 30-year bond yield
rose 0.8 basis points to
4.917
%.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal ?Reserve,
rose 1.6 basis points to
3.586
%, from
3.57
% late on
Monday
. (Reporting by Sin?ad Carew, Amanda Cooper, Tom Westbrook; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Susan Fenton and Nick Zieminski)
