Stocks rally, oil slows gains as Iran, Israel signal pause

Stocks rally, oil slows gains as Iran, Israel signal pause
Stocks rally, oil slows gains as Iran, Israel signal pause

By Sinéad Carew and Samuel Indyk

NEW YORK/LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) – The MSCI global stock index recovered some earlier losses supported by a rally in technology, and oil futures pared gains on Monday as Iran and Israel said they had stopped their attacks on each other, following a call from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The dollar fell, although uncertainty remained as Tehran said it would resume attacks if Israel continued attacking Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel had attacked a petrochemical plant in southwestern Iran and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it retaliated with a targeted attack on a similar Israeli plant in the city of Haifa.

In energy markets, US crude futures rose 1.42% to $91.83 a barrel after earlier trading above $95 a barrel, while Brent was at $94.78 a barrel, up 1.82% on the day, after earlier rising above $98 a barrel.

Wall Street indexes rallied as investors hunted for bargains after Friday’s sell-off, when the heavyweight technology sector pressured the entire market. The sector suffered its biggest daily drop since April 2025 after an interesting May jobs report fueled fears that the US Federal Reserve would need to raise interest rates.

“The profit takers did their job on Friday,” said Bruce Zaro, managing director at Granite Wealth Management in Plymouth, Massachusetts. “New buyers have come in and said that was overkill.”

In addition to worrying about geopolitics and interest rates, Zaro said investors were also preparing for this week’s long-awaited SpaceX initial public offering and reacting to changes in S&P 500 membership. The index is adding Marvell Technology, helping boost the chip sector, which sold off sharply on Friday.

The S&P 500 technology index rose 2.3% on Monday after falling 5.8% on Friday.

On Wall Street as of 10:53 a.m. ET (1453 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 153.76 points, or 0.30%, to 51,020.54, the S&P 500 rose 71.63 points, or 0.97%, to 7,455.37 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 414.23 points, or 1.61%, ‌to 26,123.66.

MSCI’s index of global shares rose 0.70 points, or 0.06%, to 1,106.50, while the pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.06%.

The decline in stock markets was earlier marked in Asia, with South Korea’s KOSPI, the world’s best-performing market this year, leading the losses with an 8.3% drop that takes the benchmark index down more than 16% from last week’s record high. Japan’s Nikkei fell almost 4%, with market favorites across the computer chip production supply chain falling the most, while Taiwan’s benchmark index sank 3.5%.

In currencies, the dollar retreated from its highest level in almost two months, as the cessation of Iranian and Israeli attacks reduced safe-haven demand.

The dollar index, which measures the dollar against a basket of currencies that includes the yen and euro, fell 0.12% to 99.96, and the euro rose 0.16% to $1.1538.

Against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.12% to 160.09.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin gained 3.27% to $63,891.25. Last week it recorded its biggest weekly drop since the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange in late 2022, falling around 16%.

In government bonds, US Treasury yields were mixed, with two-year yields retreating from a 15-month high hit on Friday after the better-than-expected May jobs report.

The US benchmark 10-year bond yield rose 1.6 basis points to 4.552%, from 4.536% on Friday, while the 30-year bond yield rose 2 basis points to 5.019%.

The 2-year bond yield, which typically moves in step with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate expectations, fell 0.2 basis points to 4.16%, from 4.162% late Friday.

In precious metals, gold steadied as hopes of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Iran helped it recover from session lows, but concerns about a Federal Reserve rate hike limited the upside.

Spot gold last rose slightly to $4,331.38 an ounce.

(Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Samuel Indyk and Tom Westbrook; editing by Shri Navaratnam, Thomas Derpinghaus, Ros Russell, Joe Bavier and Nia Williams)

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