Stocks climb on earnings and rates, oil retreats

The US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday, weighing on the dollar but supporting equities.

And while three policymakers called for a hike to combat surging inflation, at the post-meeting press conference Fed chairman Kevin Warsh struck a more dovish tone.

"The longer Warsh spoke, the less he sounded like a chair preparing the market for an imminent hike," said market analyst Stephen Innes. 

"His message appeared to be that the Fed does not need to deliver every ounce of restraint through the policy rate when the bond market is already tightening conditions on its behalf," he added.

Higher long-term bond rates have pushed up mortgage rates for consumers and corporate funding costs, thus removing the immediate need for the Fed to react, said Innes, although further rises in inflation could force the central bank's hand.

The yield on 30-year US Treasury bonds rose above 5.22 percent on Thursday, a rate last seen in the 2000s.

The Bank of England kept its benchmark rate unchanged Thursday as expected.

Wall Street's main indices pushed higher on Thursday, having fallen more than one percent the previous day.

Shares in Microsoft soared more than 15 percent after its second quarter earnings beat analysts' expectations, with its cloud and artificial intelligence divisions performing well.

Shares in Meta tumbled nearly nine percent after its second-quarter profits fell short of Wall Street expectations. The cost of staying in the race to deploy artificial intelligence hurt its bottom line.

Wall Street's rebound came despite US growth slowing in the second quarter as fallout from President Donald Trump's Iran war weighed on the world's largest economy.

GDP grew at a sluggish annualised rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter, missing analyst expectations of around 2.0 percent.

The London stock market, not far off reaching a record 11,000 points thanks to an absence of technology firms, slipped into the red shortly before the closing bell.

In Asia, South Korean stocks extended a painful retreat Thursday as a promising start gave way to more blood-letting in the tech field, while the rest of Asia was mixed.

South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics posted a 19-fold jump in second-quarter operating profit from a year earlier, buoyed by frenzied demand for memory chips used in AI data centres.

However, its share price ended lower.

Some of the biggest share-price movements Thursday came among companies outside the tech sphere.

Adidas slumped nearly 11 percent in Frankfurt after the German sportswear maker missed profit expectations, weighed down by the costs of World Cup marketing.

Oil prices fell despite another night of attacks by Iran and the United States.

Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare said traders were reassured the attacks did not target Iran's oil infrastructure.

"In other words, they had teeth -- baby teeth -- from the market's viewpoint," he said.

- Key figures around 1530 GMT -

New York - DOW: UP 0.3 percent at 51,722.55 points

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.8 percent at 7,373.81

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 2.0 percent at 24,918.77

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.1 percent at 10,897.27 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.9 percent at 8,485.64 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.6 percent at 25,612.03 (close)

Seoul - Kospi: DOWN 1.2 percent at 5,593.56 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.7 percent at 61,867.43 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.2 percent at 25,858.88 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 3,804.69 (close)

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.9 percent at $87.29 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: FLAT at $84.44 per barrel

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1516 from $1.1457 on Wednesday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3440 from $1.3350

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 159.48 yen from 163.47 yen 

Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.68 pence at 85.78 pence

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