World Shares Mostly Gain, Oil Slips    04/21 04:49

   Oil prices slipped and shares were mostly higher Tuesday in Europe and Asia 
as U.S.-Iran talks aimed at ending the war remained in doubt.

   (AP) -- Oil prices slipped and shares were mostly higher Tuesday in Europe 
and Asia as U.S.-Iran talks aimed at ending the war remained in doubt.

   The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil dipped 0.7% to $94.81. U.S. 
benchmark crude oil lost 0.9% to $86.63 per barrel.

   The war has disrupted transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital 
waterway that usually is fully open to international shipping, pushing oil 
prices sharply higher.

   U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that vessels again be allowed to 
transit the strait unimpeded, imposing a blockade on Iranian ports. He has said 
Vice President JD Vance will visit Pakistan's capital Islamabad for talks with 
Iran. But after the U.S. Navy's seizure of an Iranian-flagged cargo ship, the 
Iranian side has made no commitment to more negotiations.

   In early European trading, Germany's DAX rose 0.6% to 24,558.9 and the CAC 
40 in Paris was little changed, at 8,333.05. Britain's FTSE 100 edged 0.1% 
higher, to 10,620.92.

   The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 
just over 0.1%.

   In Asian share trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 climbed 0.9% to 59,349.17 on 
strong gains for tech-related companies like Tokyo Electron, which rose 3.5%. 
Tech and energy giant SoftBank Group Corp. gained 8.5%, part of the latest wave 
of gains pinned on expectations of windfalls from artificial intelligence.

   South Korea's Kospi jumped 2.7% to 6,388.47, and Taiwan's Taiex advanced 
1.8%.

   The Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.5% to 26,481.48 and the Shanghai 
Composite index added 0.1% to 4,085.08.

   Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined less than 0.1% to 8,949.40.

   Oil prices had climbed Monday following the latest rise of tensions between 
the United States and Iran, but the moves were more modest than they were 
earlier in the war. U.S. stocks, meanwhile, gave back a bit of their 
record-breaking rally.

   On Monday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.2% from its all-time high and the Dow 
industrials edged less than 0.1% lower. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.3%.

   Worries over disruptions of supplies of oil from the Persian Gulf if Iran 
continues to block tankers from exiting the Strait of Hormuz are clouding 
investor sentiment.

   The next big deadline is looming on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 
which is early Wednesday Tehran time, when a ceasefire agreement between the 
United States and Iran is scheduled to expire.

   "The current dynamic is one of a precarious balance of truce," Mizuho Bank 
said in a commentary, so "as the ceasefire draws to its 2-week deadline, the 
all-consuming question is whether both sides can seize on the talks to land on 
a US-Iran deal that ends the war."

   For now, oil prices remain well below the $119 per barrel level for Brent 
crude when fears were at their highest. And the S&P 500 is still above where it 
was before the war.

   Several of the biggest U.S. banks said last week that they see the U.S. 
economy remaining resilient, particularly because of solid spending by U.S. 
consumers.

   U.S. companies have been reporting big profits for the first three months of 
2026, helping to support the market. Nearly nine out of 10 companies that have 
already reported earnings for January-March posted bigger profits than analysts 
had expected, according to FactSet.

   If the rest of the companies in the S&P 500 match analysts' expectations, 
overall earnings per share for companies in the index will end up 13% higher 
than a year earlier, it estimates.

   Other companies scheduled to report their results this week include 
UnitedHealth Group on Tuesday, Tesla on Wednesday and Procter & Gamble on 
Friday.

   In other dealings early Tuesday, the U.S. dollar rose to 159.21 Japanese yen 
from 158.82 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1767 from $1.1789.