Stocks mostly rise as oil, US yields ease; euro edges up

By Caroline Valetkevitch and Shashwat Chauhan Oct 20 (Reuters) - US stocks rose as oil prices and Treasury yields eased on Tuesday, while the euro inched higher even as worries about unrest in France remained. Helping the Dow, 3M shares gained sharply after it said it was expanding its data-center partnership with Amazon.

Shares of the industrial conglomerate were also higher after it raised its full-year profit forecast. Quarterly earnings are due from SpaceX and Netflix after the US market closes, with results from AI heavyweights such as Meta and Tesla scheduled later in the week. Investors are looking to corporate earnings for evidence that consumers and the broader economy remain resilient, but also that massive AI spending is paying off.

Reflecting some of this nervousness was a 32% drop in South Korean AI infrastructure company Elice Group, when the stock fell below its initial public offering price in its market debut. Investors are also still assessing the risk that higher interest rates pose to AI stocks. "This is a market relieved that rates have come down, relieved that there's less volatility in oil prices, even though they remain elevated," said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

"Earnings season can distract this market. Earnings season can give this market reason to go higher," he said. US Treasury yields dropped, with economic data showing slumping demand for US housing.

Traders see a 14.9% probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike of at least 25 basis points at its policy meeting next week, according to CME FedWatch, down from 22.1% a week ago and 57.6% a month earlier. The Commerce Department said US single-family homebuilding and permits for future construction fell sharply in September, while the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index tumbled 7.3% to 66.0 last month, the lowest level since the series started in 2001.

The yield on the benchmark US 10-year Treasury note dropped 4 basis points to 5.096%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 490.46 points, or 0.94%, to 52,453.89, the S&P 500 gained 30.54 points, or 0.4%, to 7,721.27 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 53.23 points, or 0.2%, to 26,484.11.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe added 0.93 points, or 0.08%, to 1,130.91. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.14%. European semiconductor companies including ASML and ASMI were lower.

French stocks fell 0.4%. EURO EDGES UP, OIL DOWN France's cities were calm overnight under curfews imposed after last weekend's unrest, as protest groups announced a new round of demonstrations next Saturday. The euro was up 0.17% at $1.1229.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.22% to 101.75. France's government bond yields climbed further on Tuesday, with investors remaining cautious ahead of the plans for further protests. The unrest in France has underscored the difficulties the French government faces in reducing its large deficit.

France's 10-year OAT yield was up 3 basis points at 4.96%; it reached 4.9937%, its highest since July 2002, in early October. The yield gap between OATs and Bunds widened by 5.5 bps to 152.50 bps. Oil prices slipped after touching a five-month high during a choppy session as traders weighed Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure and reports of vessel attacks in the Gulf.

US crude fell 0.89% to $102.74 a barrel and Brent dropped 1.2% to $108.23 per barrel. (Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Rocky Swift in Tokyo and Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Jacqueline Wong, Amanda Cooper, Xevi Fontdegloria, Kevin Liffey, Rod Nickel)