Stocks bounce back, oil pares gains as Iran and Israel signal a pause

By Sinéad Carew and Samuel Indyk

NEW YORK/LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - MSCI's global equities index fell slightly on Monday but Wall Street saw some support from a bounce in technology stocks while oil futures pared earlier gains as Iran and Israel said they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The dollar eased, although uncertainty remained as Tehran said it would resume strikes if Israel continued to hit Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel had struck a petrochemical plant in southwestern Iran and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it retaliated with a strike aimed at a similar Israeli plant in the city of Haifa.

In energy markets, U.S. crude futures settled up 0.84%, or 76 cents at $91.30 a barrel after earlier trading above $95 a barrel, while Brent ended the session at $94.25 per barrel, up 1.25%, or $1.16, after earlier rising above $98 a barrel.

Wall Street main indexes staged a comeback as investors looked for bargains after Friday's selloff when the heavyweight technology sector put pressure on the entire market. The sector had suffered its largest daily decline since April 2025 after a hot May jobs report fueled fears the U.S. Federal Reserve would need to raise interest rates.

"The profit takers did their work on Friday," said Bruce Zaro, managing director at Granite Wealth Management in Plymouth, Massachusetts. "New buyers have come in and said, that was overdone." 

Aside from worrying about geopolitics and interest rates, Zaro said that investors were also preparing for this week's hotly anticipated SpaceX IPO and reacting to tweaks to membership of the S&P 500. The index is adding Marvell Technology, helping to boost the chip sector, which sold off sharply on Friday. 

The S&P 500 technology index finished up 1.5% on Monday after tumbling 5.8% on Friday.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 80.77 points, or 0.16%, to 50,786.01, the S&P 500 rose 21.99 points, or 0.30%, to 7,405.73 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 220.23 points, or 0.86%, to 25,929.66. 

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell 4.84 points, or 0.44%, to 1,100.96.

Earlier the pan-European STOXX 600 index had finished down 0.15%.

U.S. and European trading sessions were in stark contrast with Asia where South Korea's chip-heavy KOSPI, the world's best-performing market this year, had tumbled 8.3% while Japan's Nikkei fell almost 4%, with market darlings across the computer-chip production supply chain falling furthest, while Taiwan's benchmark sank 3.5%.

In currencies, the dollar retreated from its highest level in nearly two months as the halt of Iranian and Israeli attacks reduced safe haven demand.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.08% to 100.00, with the euro up 0.1% at $1.1531.

Against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.07% to 160.17.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin gained 2.23% to $63,248.36. Last week it had notched its heaviest weekly drop since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in late 2022, falling about 16%. 

In government bonds markets, the yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 2.8 basis points to 4.564%, from 4.536% late on Friday while the 30-year bond yield  rose 3.9 basis points to 5.0384% from 4.999% late on Friday.

The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose 0.2 basis points to 4.164%, from 4.162% late on Friday.

In precious metals, gold was close to flat as hopes for a potential Israel-Iran ceasefire helped it bounce from session lows but expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike kept it in check.

Spot gold fell 0.03% to $4,327.63 an ounce.

(Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Samuel Indyk and Tom Westbrook; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Thomas Derpinghaus, Ros Russell, Joe Bavier and Nia Williams)