Global Markets: Global stock index near flat; SpaceX shares jump

Space Exploration Technologies

Yesterday 17:49

Updates to midday
SpaceX vaults past Microsoft and Amazon market value
BOJ votes 7-1 to raise its benchmark policy rate to 1%
Oil futures fall
Nvidia sells $25 billion of bonds
By Caroline Valetkevitch and Amanda Cooper

    NEW YORK/LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - A global stock index was little changed on Tuesday, with doubts churning over the U.S.-Iran interim deal to end the Middle East war, while the dollar held firm against the yen after the Bank of Japan raised rates to a 31-year high.
Oil prices extended recent sharp losses amid hopes the deal will allow oil to flow through the Strait of Hormuz. There are warnings that shipping and energy exports could take weeks to recover, although U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the text would be made public soon.
Shares of Elon Musk's SpaceX SPCX.O rose more than 14%, lifting its valuation past Amazon.com AMZN.O and briefly above Microsoft MSFT.O to rank it among the five most valuable companies within days of a blockbuster debut.
"It's still really all about the exuberance of SpaceX and what SpaceX can pull along with it as far as the Nasdaq. That's really where all of the action has been, and specifically technology," said Bruce Zaro, managing director at Granite Wealth Management in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
      "It's going to be a stretch to see this strength continue between now and the third week in July," when second-quarter earnings begin, he said. 
Nvidia NVDA.O, the world's most valuable maker of AI chips, surprised investors by tapping the bond markets for $25 billion. The company said the cash would be used for general corporate purposes and the debt sale was to establish a liquid benchmark for future issuance. Nvidia shares dropped 1.6%.
     
DOW RISES
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were lower while the Dow was up.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 453.08 points, or 0.88%, to 52,126.99, the S&P 500 .SPX fell 12.51 points, or 0.17%, to 7,541.78 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 138.61 points, or 0.52%, to 26,545.33.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS rose 0.02% to 1,131.51.
The pan-European STOXX 600 .STOXX index rose 0.25%.
U.S. crude CLc1 fell 5.85% to $76.05 a barrel and Brent LCOc1 fell to $79.03, down 5%.
In foreign exchange, the dollar index =USD, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.15% to 99.50, with the euro EUR= up 0.2% at $1.1613.
Against the Japanese yen JPY=, the dollar strengthened 0.04% to 160.38.
The BOJ raised interest rates to a 31-year high in a landmark step in its policy normalization, signalling readiness to tighten further as it focuses on taming price pressures from the Iran-war-induced energy shock.
The Australian dollar AUD= strengthened 0.07% versus the greenback to $0.7076 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept interest rates on hold as expected.
The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes US10YT=RR fell 3.94 basis points to 4.43%, from 4.469% late on Monday.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Amanda Cooper in London; Additional reporting by Alun John and Gregor Stuart Hunter; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Jacqueline Wong, Rod Nickel)
((caroline.valetkevitch@thomsonreuters.com))