MARKET SNAPSHOT
U.S. stocks were mostly higher, oil prices and Treasury yields rose and gold prices fell as an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to the U.S. blockade, while postponing nuclear negotiations, was reviewed by Washington. The U.S. dollar edged lower.
MARKET WRAPS
EQUITIES
U.S. stocks extended gains as an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to the U.S. blockade, while postponing nuclear negotiations, was reviewed by Washington.
The S&P 500 advanced 0.1% and is on pace to its best month since November 2020. Nasdaq gained 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%.
GM, UPS and Coca-Cola are among the companies reporting quarterly earnings before U.S. markets open Tuesday.
U.S. consumer sentiment and housing data are also due Tuesday.
It will also be a busy week for central banks, with policy decisions due from the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England. The Fed is expected to keep rates unchanged at 3.50-3.75% at its meeting, which wraps up Wednesday.
Earlier Monday, Asian stocks traded mixed as investors navigated optimism around AI against the backdrop of rising tensions in the Middle East.
China's Shanghai Composite Index edged 0.2% higher and the Shenzhen Composite Index added 0.5%. The tech-focused ChiNext Price Index fell 0.5%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index moved 0.2% lower.
Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 1.4% to close above 60000 for the first time. Electronics stocks led the climb.
Taiwan's Taiex closed up 1.8%, led by gains at TSMC.
South Korea's Kospi rose 2.2% to a record high as chip and robotics stocks advanced.
Stocks in Australia slipped, as the S&P/ASX 200 Benchmark Index fell 0.2%.
Markets in New Zealand were closed for ANZAC Day.
COMMODITIES
Oil futures settled higher as U.S.-Iran talks were postponed again this weekend and the market doubted the Trump administration would accept an Iranian proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz on condition the U.S. lift its blockade and leave Iran's nuclear activities for later discussion.
"The trade is increasingly skeptical that anything is going to get done anytime soon, and the move to the upside is gaining traction," Mizuho's Robert Yawger said.
"The longer the strait stays closed, the higher the price will rise."
WTI settled up 2.1% at $96.37 a barrel and Brent rose 2.8% to $108.23 a barrel.
Gold and silver have had a rough go in recent weeks, with Monday's lower close extending the losing period, according to data from FactSet.
Front-month gold futures settled down 1% to $4,675 a troy ounce, while silver closed off 1.8% to $75.003 a troy ounce.
It's the eighth lower session out of the past 12 for gold futures, while silver fell for four out of the past six sessions.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
Oil Prices Are Back Above $100. Why It Could Be a 'Cruel Summer.'
Oil prices settled higher Monday afternoon after the White House confirmed that President Donald Trump is discussing a new peace proposal from Iran with his national security team.
"The president has met with his national security team this morning. The proposal is being discussed," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a briefing.
Under the new proposal, presented to regional mediators over the weekend, Iran said it would stop attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a full end to the war and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, The Wall Street Journal reported.
German Consumer Sentiment Slumps to Three-Year Low on Iran War Impact
Consumer confidence in Germany plunged to its lowest level since February 2023 as the conflict in the Middle East dimmed income expectations and hopes for a tentative economic rebound this year amid surging energy prices.
Germany's consumer-climate index, published Monday by research group the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions and GfK, fell to minus 33.3 in its forecast for May, from minus 28.1 for April. The 5.2-point decline is the sharpest since October 2022, as Germany's economy reeled from the last energy shock in the months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The decline follows the fall of the closely watched Ifo Institute business-sentiment indicator, which tumbled to a near six-year low in April in data published Friday. Companies increasingly reported more pessimistic business expectations for the coming months amid broad-based weakness for manufacturers, services companies and in construction.
Moody's Upgrades China's Outlook, Citing Resilience in Face of Challenges
Moody's Ratings has upgraded China's credit outlook to stable from negative, citing its economic and fiscal strength to navigate challenges at home and abroad.
"The stabilization of the outlook is supported by sustained growth and effective debt management," the firm said on Monday.
Despite the property-sector slump and an expected slowdown in export growth, Moody's expects exports to continue supporting a relatively strong pace of economic expansion.
The U.S.-China Tech Rivalry Is Heating Up. What It Means for the Trump-Xi Summit.
U.S. officials have signaled in recent weeks that the focus at next month's summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be stabilizing the relationship between the two rivals.
And while tensions have eased on trade and other issues, recent moves by the two countries are a reminder that the competition around AI is only intensifying.
The White House on Thursday accused China of running "an industrial-scale distillation campaigns" to steal American AI technology. Anthropic, OpenAI and others have alleged Chinese AI companies use proxy accounts to generate millions of queries and use the responses to help train their own models.
EU Tells Google to Open Android to AI Rivals
The European Union told Alphabet's Google what it should do to open up its Android operating system to artificial-intelligence services that compete with its own, the latest move by the bloc to rein in the search giant's market power.
The European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, said Monday that Google should ensure competing AI services can "effectively interact" with applications on Android devices. Those services should be able to execute tasks such as sending an email using the user's preferred email app, order from delivery apps or share photos with the user's friends, the commission said.
Android already enables AI assistants to thrive, said Clare Kelly, Google's senior competition counsel.
Shell Buys a Gas Producer Far From the Middle East Turmoil
Shell has agreed to buy Canadian energy producer ARC Resources for about $13.6 billion, a deal that gives the U.K. oil major new opportunities to export liquefied natural gas-or LNG-far from the conflict zones of the Middle East.
In buying ARC, Shell is taking over one of the suppliers to a giant LNG export terminal that it partly owns in British Columbia-a key facility used to serve customers in Asia. ARC mainly produces gas and gas liquids from the Montney basin in Western Canada.
The deal-Shell's biggest in more than a decade-comes as gas prices have surged because of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sharply cut energy exports from the Persian Gulf. That includes LNG shipments from Qatar-the world's second-biggest supplier-where Shell is part owner of a liquefaction facility.
China Bans Meta's Acquisition of Manus on National Security Grounds
China has banned Meta Platforms' acquisition of artificial-intelligence startup Manus on national security grounds and ordered that the $2.5 billion deal be unwound.
China's National Development and Reform Commission, which has the authority to review foreign investments, said Monday that it has banned the acquisition and ordered it to be rescinded.
"The transaction complied fully with applicable law," a Meta representative said in an email statement. "We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry."