NEW YORK/LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) - MSCI's global equities gauge reversed course to turn higher on Thursday and oil's rally eased after Israel indicated willingness for peace talks with Lebanon, renewing hopes for the fragile Gulf truce.
The U.S. dollar added to losses and U.S. Treasury yields turned lower after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has given an instruction for Israel to begin peace talks with Lebanon that would also include the disarming of Hezbollah, which is linked to Iran.
Wall Street stocks turned from red to green after the statement seemed to ease worries that Israel's actions in Lebanon would torpedo U.S. President Donald Trump's truce with Iran. Earlier, Israel had bombed Lebanon killing more than 250 people. This was after Iran had indicated that Lebanon should be part of the ceasefire.
The strikes and scant signs of opening the Strait of Hormuz by Iran had sent oil prices sharply higher earlier in the day. After earlier rising above $102, U.S. crude was up 3.43% at $97.71 a barrel in early afternoon trading and Brent , after rising earlier to $99.50 was trading at $95.50 per barrel, up 0.8% on the day.
While Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Stamford, Connecticut said that weekend peace talks could bring some insight and promise, he noted that it could "take a little while before investors have confidence in the outlook for the war and where oil prices are going."
"You've had a major equity rally where the index is only down a little more than a percent on the year. There's nothing attractive about chasing this tape at these prices," he said.
On Wall Street at 12:18 p.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), was up 281.82 points, or 0.59%, to 48,191.74, the S&P 500 (.SPX), rose 42.46 points, or 0.63%, to 6,825.27 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), was 172.96 points, or 0.76%, higher at 22,807.95.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS), rose 2.77 points, or 0.27%, to 1,033.82.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX), index closed down 0.15%.
Overnight in Asia, Japan's Nikkei (.N225), fell 0.7% after jumping more than 5% on Wednesday. South Korea (.KS11), dipped 1.6%, following a leap of 6.8% in the prior session and MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), eased 0.7% after Wednesday's roughly 5% rally.
ASSETS TURN ON MID EAST HOPES
In U.S. Treasuries, the yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell 2.2 basis points to 4.269%, from 4.291% late on Wednesday while the 30-year bond yield fell 1 basis point to 4.8755%.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 4.4 basis points to 3.75%, from 3.794%.
In currencies, the dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.37% to 98.69, with the euro up 0.43% at $1.1712.
Against the Japanese yen , the dollar strengthened 0.09% to 158.72.
In precious metals markets, spot gold rose 1.63% to $4,793.07 an ounce while spot silver was up 2.66% at $76.09 an ounce.
With oil prices still sharply higher than pre-war levels, inflation has been a major concern for investors, with March U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) data due to be released on Friday before the market open.
Thursday's data showed the PCE index of U.S. core prices for February up 2.8% on an annual basis and 3% excluding the volatile food and energy components. Both figures were in line with economists' forecasts although a separate report showed fourth-quarter U.S. economic growth of 0.5% versus estimates for 0.7%.
Reporting by Sinéad Carew, Marc Jones; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Kirsten Donovan
