Stocks gain, oil falls 6%; big tech-related earnings on tap this week

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) –Global stock indexes rose on Monday as investors awaited earnings reports this week from several of the biggest U.S. tech-related companies, while oil prices dropped 6% after Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran at the weekend bypassed oil and nuclear facilities.

The Japanese yen fell to a three-month low against the dollar following an election in Japan thrust the country into political turmoil.

U.S. earnings season is in full swing, with a long list of names due to report this week including five of the biggest U.S. companies: Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Apple and Amazon.com.

The week also brings the U.S. jobs report for October on Friday, while investors are keeping a close eye on political news with the U.S. presidential election just over a week away.

Employers are expected to have added 123,000 jobs during October, while the unemployment rate is likely to have stayed steady at 4.1%, according to economists polled by Reuters.,

The election for U.S. president is expected to be close. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, was leading Republican Donald Trump nationally by a marginal 46% to 43%, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Election Day in the U.S. is Nov. 5.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields hit a three-month high ahead of this week’s data and the election. They were last up 4.4 basis points at 4.274% in afternoon U.S. trading.

It’s the calm before the storm,” said Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates strategy at Societe Generale in New York. A lot of investors are a little bit more cautious heading into the elections.

Oil prices tumbled as worries about a wider Middle East war eased. Brent futures settled at $71.42 a barrel, down $4.63 or 6.09%. WTI U.S. crude futures settled at $67.38, down $4.40 or 6.13%.

Energy shares eased along with oil prices, with the S&P 500 energy sector ending down 0.7%, while the three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 273.17 points, or 0.65%, to 42,387.57, the S&P 500 rose 15.40 points, or 0.27%, to 5,823.52 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 48.58 points, or 0.26%, to 18,567.19.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform, surged 21.6% on Monday, extending a recent rally.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 2.44 points, or 0.29%, to 847.93. The STOXX 600 index rose 0.41%.

The yen remained under pressure as the election loss by Japan’s ruling coalition raises political and monetary policy uncertainty.

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its parliamentary majority. The party, with junior coalition partner Komeito, won 215 lower-house seats in Sunday’s election, public broadcaster NHK reported, well short of the 233 needed for a majority.

Against the yen, the dollar rose by as much as 1% to a high of 153.88, the yen’s weakest level since late July. The dollar was last up 0.64% at 153.28.

Also, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.08% to 104.30, and the euro was up 0.19% at $1.0813.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London and Karen Brettell in New York; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Sonali Paul, Gareth Jones, Marguerita Choy, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)