GLOBAL MARKETS-Global stock index dips with oil rallying on Iran worries as gold, silver rise

(Updates prices to late U.S. afternoon)

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Global equities index dips as Wall Street loses ground

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Gold and silver rise after two-day selloff

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Dollar falls, US 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 lost ground on Tuesday as technology stocks pushed Wall Street lower in contrast with an oil rally on fears of U.S.-Iran tensions while precious metal prices rose sharply, regaining some lost ground following a two-day rout. Oil prices jumped after the U.S. military shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, ?according to a Reuters report citing a U.S. official. Also, a group of Iranian gunboats approached a U.S.-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz north of Oman, maritime sources and a security consultancy said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar was slightly lower ?while the Australian dollar was the stand-out performer on Tuesday after the central bank joined Japan as the only developed world economy to raise interest rates.

Investor anxiety appeared to rise ?as the session wore on with the CBOE volatility index picking up steam near the end of the first half hour of the ?U.S. stock market session and continuing to gain ?ground. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq had opened higher but lost ground quickly with software stocks weighing due to concerns about AI competition. Nvidia (NVDA) shares were the biggest weight on Wall Street after Reuters reported that ChatGPT ?developer OpenAI has been seeking faster alternatives to Nvidia's (NVDA) artificial intelligence chips. "Any AI related headlines right ?now are coming out as a negative and a headwind for the broader market. Under the surface there're areas of the market that are acting well but tech is getting hit pretty hard," said Sahak Manuelian, managing director for global equities trading at Wedbush Securities in Pasadena, California. Earnings were also on investors' ?minds with chipmaker AMD and server equipment company Super Micro Computer (SMCI) due to report after ?the market close. At 1:30 p.m. ?ET (1830 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 434.86 points, or 0.88%, at 48,972.16, the S&P 500 fell 92.68 points, or 1.33%, to 6,883.94 and the Nasdaq Composite shed 482.87 points, or 2.04%, to 23,109.64. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell 3.76 points, or 0.36%, to 1,040.01. Earlier, the pan-European STOXX 600 index ?finished up 0.1% for its second closing record in a row but trading was muted by a sharp selloff in software and advertising stocks. While the heavyweight technology sector was the weakest in the S&P 500, down 3%, energy was the strongest group, up more than 2% helped by the rise in oil prices.

Oil prices rallied on concerns about Iran, after falling over 4% in the previous session. Traders also cited worries over supply as Russia continued attacks on Ukraine while they hoped an agreement between the U.S. and India to slash tariffs could boost global demand. U.S. crude rose 1.17% to $62.87 a barrel and Brent rose to $66.98 per barrel, up 1.03% on the day. Commodities and the dollar have been whipsawed since U.S. President Trump's nomination of Kevin ?Warsh to lead the ?Federal Reserve last Friday. While he is expected to 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 5.32% to $4,913.23 an ounce, after falling about 13% ?in the prior two sessions. Spot silver rose 5.05% to $83.43 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 seeing a little bit of calmness returning back to the markets on the commodity side looking at gold and silver." In currencies, the dollar took a step back after last week's rally against a range of currencies. The Australian dollar strengthened 0.86% versus the greenback to $0.7007 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 0.12% to 97.42, with the ?euro up 0.21% at $1.1814. Against the Japanese yen, however, the dollar strengthened 0.1% to 155.76. In U.S. Treasuries, yields rose slightly as traders evaluated possible shifts in Federal Reserve policy under Warsh as they faced U.S. economic data delays due to a partial government shutdown. The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 0.7 basis points to 4.284%, from 4.277% late on Monday while the 30-year bond yield rose 0.5 basis points to 4.9138%. The 2-year note yield, which typically moves ?in step with interest rate expectations, rose 0.6 basis points to 3.576%, from 3.57% late on Monday.

(Reporting by Sin?ad Carew, Amanda Cooper, Tom Westbrook; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Susan Fenton and Nick Zieminski)