Global Markets: Oil advances anew, stocks gain on upbeat results

European energy shares had their best day since January on the back of higher oil prices on Tuesday while Wall Street rose on upbeat results that eased fears of slowing profits.

News that the United States told buyers of Iranian oil to stop purchases by May 1 or face sanctions lifted Brent, the global benchmark, and made for a lively return from a four-day Easter break for European markets.

European oil and gas shares jumped more than 2%, with BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc lifting the FTSE 100 index to six-month highs, while the FTSEurofirst 300 Index of leading regional shares hit eight-month highs.

The main U.S. indexes hovered below record highs as strong results from Coca-Cola Co, Twitter Inc and a host of industrial companies allayed concerns about the earnings outlook.

The government shutdown earlier this year weakened the economy and corporate growth but since March companies have done extraordinarily well and growth continues strong, said George Boyan, president of Leumi Investment Services in New York.

"We remain overweight (in equities) and any type of pullback we would view as an opportunity to add equity exposure," Boyan said. "We`ve enjoyed quite a run but there`s nothing to causes me to want to take off exposure at this point."

Twitter surged 16.5%, its biggest single-day jump since October 2017, after posting better-than-expected quarterly revenue and a surprising rise in monthly active users.

Coca-Cola rose 2.6% after its quarterly sales beat estimates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 70.32 points, or 0.27%, to 26,581.37. The S&P 500 gained 13.96 points, or 0.48%, to 2,921.93 and the Nasdaq Composite added 55.96 points, or 0.7%, to 8,071.23.

MSCI`s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.28%.

The dollar climbed across the board as traders favored the greenback ahead of Friday`s release of U.S. gross domestic product for the first three months of 2019.

The dollar was supported by data that showed sales of new U.S. single-family homes jumped to a near 1-1/2-year high in March.

The data followed recent upbeat news on retail sales and exports, which have eased concerns of a sharply slowing U.S. economy, analysts said.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six currencies, rose 0.41% after hitting its highest since June 2017. The euro fell 0.46% against the dollar, slipping below $1.12 for the first time in nearly three weeks.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.02% versus the greenback at 111.92 per dollar.

Oil prices hit their highest since November.

Brent crude futures rose as high as $74.70, a level not seen since Nov. 1, before paring gains. Brent futures rose 58 cents to $74.62 a barrel.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $1.03 to $66.58 a barrel.

Treasury yields fell, a counter-trend in the broader rise in yields over the past month. As the economic outlook has improved, yields have risen back from late-March lows.

Benchmark 10-year notes rose 4/32 in price to push its yield down to 2.5758%.

The Swiss franc burrowed to a new 16-month low on talk of even more negative rates. Two usual beneficiaries of higher oil prices, the Canadian dollar and Norwegian crown, both struggled despite the crude rally.

In China, major benchmarks had dipped in and out of negative territory on concern that Beijing will slow the pace of policy easing after unexpectedly strong first-quarter economic data last week.

China`s blue-chip stocks have surged over 30 percent so far this year on expectations of more stimulus and hopes Beijing and Washington will reach an agreement to end their nine-month trade dispute.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)