Wall Street inches higher as oil prices, bond yields retreat for fifth consecutive day

Oil prices retreated for the fifth straight day Tuesday and Wall Street was poised to open modestly higher as pressure from the bond market eased.

With little in the way of corporate earnings or government economic data releases, markets were somewhat subdued in the early going. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were up less than 0.1% before the bell, while Nasdaq futures rose 0.3%.

The price for a barrel of U.S. crude fell $2.38 and dipped below $90 for the first time this month. Brent crude, the international standard, slid $2.05 to $98.29 per barrel. There are reports that Saudi Arabia is working to re-open its east-west pipeline, which was damaged in attacks.

That is still almost $30 more per barrel compared with this time last year, and dozens of countries have implemented fuel switching and work-from-home programs to ease the burden for people living there. But prices are down from close to $110 reached last week.

Oil prices have been swinging as some crude passed through the Strait of Hormuz to get to customers, though nowhere near as much as the industry would like because of conflicts in the Middle East.

The recent decline in oil prices has helped relieve some of the pressure that rising bond yields had been putting on the market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased further to 4.93% early Tuesday after crossing above the 5% threshold last week for the first time since 2023.

Yields have been on the rise because of worries about inflation, big debt loads for governments worldwide and other factors. That hurts the economy because high yields make it more expensive not only for the U.S. government to borrow money to pay its bills but also for households and businesses.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX each rose 0.5%. Britain's FTSE 100 was up less than 0.1%.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.3% to 8,757.80. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.2% to 7,017.91. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.2% to 25,087.75, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed, inching up less than 0.1% to 3,952.13. Tokyo markets were closed for an extended holiday and trading will resume Thursday.

Global markets are also getting a boost recently from AI stocks, which continue to strengthen after their worldwide slide at the start of last week. Leaders of the industry have recently warned a slowdown is needed in the industry’s development for the safety of humanity.

Alibaba rose 3.1% Tuesday after the Chinese tech giant unveiled new artificial intelligence chip technologies, including what it said was China’s most powerful AI chip. That comes just days ahead of a meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders at which competition to lead on AI technology is expected to be a major theme.

Alibaba’s announcement came as U.S. AI leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, are warning that China’s development of AI poses a threat to the United States and calling for an overall slowdown on development of the technology.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is set to arrive in Washington on Wednesday for a state visit and meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. In addition to AI, the two leaders are expected to talk about trade and tariffs.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama