Stocks, dollar gain after US retail sales data; focus still on Trump

By Isla Binnie and Amanda Cooper

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - World stock indexes mostly rose and the U.S. dollar strengthened on Tuesday after solid U.S. retail sales signalled resilience in the economy.

Data released on Tuesday showed retail sales unchanged in June from a May reading that was higher than initially estimated.

Markets were still fully pricing in a rate cut of at least 25 basis points (bps) by the Fed at its September meeting, according to CME's FedWatch Tool.

The MSCI All-World index rose 1.12 points, or 0.14%, to 829.85.

"There are signs of softness around the edges where low and moderate income consumers are pulling back ... but openhanded spending by affluent consumers is keeping the economy as a whole moving forward," said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Monday that recent inflation data bolstered policymakers' confidence that price pressures are on a sustainable path lower.

Investors also were still pondering the implications of a possible Donald Trump victory in the upcoming presidential election following the attempted assassination on Trump on Saturday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 592.93 points, or 1.47%, to 40,804.65, the S&P 500 gained 28.01 points, or 0.50%, to 5,659.23 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 27.23 points, or 0.15%, to 18,499.80.

In Europe, the STOXX 600 fell 0.23%.

A CLOSE RACE

Trump, a Republican, nominated J.D. Vance on Monday as his vice presidential running mate.

Opinion polls show a close race between Trump and President Joe Biden, though Trump leads in several states that are likely to decide the November election.

"He's already the favourite, by some margin, so he’s becoming even more of a favourite," said Colin Asher, economist a Mizuho, said.

XTB research director Kathleen Brooks said, "The Trump trade is buy American stocks and ditch everything else..."

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, gained 0.16% to 104.41, with the euro down 0.14% at $1.0879. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar strengthened 0.37% to 158.6.

Investors are still closely watching the yen after Tokyo's suspected intervention last week disrupted the popular carry trade.

Japanese officials also made fresh warnings of possible measures.

Data on Tuesday showed the Bank of Japan likely intervened a second time on July 12 to the tune of 2.14 trillion yen ($13.50 billion) to support the currency. This follows some $22.43 billion the central bank may have spent on intervention the previous day, according to last Friday's data.

Treasury prices found some stability after Monday's sell-off. The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell 3.1 basis points to 4.198%, from 4.229% late on Monday.

Oil prices were lower, with U.S. crude down 1.03% to $81.08 a barrel and Brent at $84.13 per barrel, down 0.86% on the day. [O/R]

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Stella Qiu in Sydney; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Mark Potter and Aurora Ellis)