The China Mail - Stocks advance as Trump rules out pre-vote Iran attack

Trump said Washington was holding "productive discussions" with Tehran after reports that the White House had asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a possible attack ahead of the November 3 vote.

It was suggested that a show of strength might help struggling Republicans' chances at the polls.

Following the reports the main international crude contract Brent North Sea had jumped more than five percent on Thursday.

Following Trump's comments oil turned lower, but picked up once again on Friday.

Trump's comments left "underlying tensions and problems in the Middle East unchanged", said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG.

"So long as tanker and insurance rates remain at their current painful levels, a sustained decline in oil prices is much less likely, even if flows are holding up well," he added.

Tech stocks largely rebounded from a drop Thursday sparked by a report in the Financial Times that OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, expected to make $50 billion in annualised revenue this year, below the $70 billion flagged.

That spooked tech stocks, even if Bloomberg later cited unnamed sources as saying the firm expected to hit the original estimate.

"The discrepancy may reflect differences in revenue measurement rather than an outright deterioration in OpenAI's underlying business," said Chris Weston at Pepperstone.

Still, "in a market where valuations are increasingly dependent on ambitious revenue and cash flow projections, the headlines have been enough to trigger a meaningful one-day repositioning", he added.

The news report helped send Wall Street's Nasdaq Composite down more than one percent on Thursday, with Nvidia down nearly three percent and Microsoft, AMD and Amazon also ending sharply lower.

But Asia mostly closed higher Friday as early selling was pared back, and Europe's main stock markets also recovered to post solid gains.

Wall Street pushed higher, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite adding 0.4 percent.

Shares in Microsoft and Amazon both rebounded more than two percent, although Nvidia shares dipped 0.2 percent.

"The big test comes as earnings season gets going over the next few weeks, when the companies writing the biggest checks for AI tell us whether they're still prepared to keep writing them," said Josh Gilbert at the trading firm eToro.

Elsewhere, China and the European Union reached an understanding to "moderate" hybrid vehicles exports on Friday, which could prevent millions of Chinese cars from being shipped to Europe, the bloc's commerce chief said following talks that dispelled a much-feared trade war.

Shares in carmakers BMW, Renault and Volkswagen gained more than two percent.

- Key figures at around 1530 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 51,488.74 points

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.4 percent at 7,798.37

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 27,309.41

London - FTSE 100: UP 1.1 percent at 10,552.05 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 1.0 percent at 7,805.68 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 1.1 percent at 25,087.27 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: FLAT at 68,030.92 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 1.8 percent at 24,211.35 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,813.79 (close)

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 0.5 percent at $104.80 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.4 percent at $91.82 per barrel

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1198 from $1.1213 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3233 from $1.3228

Dollar/yen: UP at 158.34 yen from 157.92 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 84.62 pence from 84.77 pence

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K.Leung--ThChM