GLOBAL MARKETS-Wall St muted, oil drops amid trade fog; earnings, data loom

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK, April 28 (Reuters) - Wall Street stocks showed little conviction on Monday and gold eased as market participants watched for signs of progress in tariff negotiations at the top of an eventful week of corporate earnings and economic data.

Weakness in the tech sector .SPLRCT held the Nasdaq back, but gold lost ground and benchmark U.S. Treasury yields oscillated.

"The news has evened out," Thomas Martin, Senior Portfolio Manager at GLOBALT in Atlanta. "There's not really any news today that’s market-moving."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday said many of the top U.S. trading partners have made "very good" tariff proposals, adding that China's recent moves to exempt certain U.S. goods from its retaliatory tariffs showed a willingness to de-escalate trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.

"We just keep on trying to dial into what the trade negotiations are going to be like," Martin added. "And it's this combination of public statements versus what's really going on behind the scenes."

Despite hopes for progress, economists polled by Reuters say the risk of global recession is high as a result of Trump's tariffs; the same group of economists expected the world economy to grow at a healthy clip a mere three months ago.

First quarter earnings season heats up this week, with Meta Platforms META.O, Microsoft MSFT.O, Apple AAPL.O and Amazon.com AMZN.O among the high-profile results on the docket.

While Monday was quiet with respect to U.S. economic data, the week is back-end loaded with closely watched indicators such as Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), the Institute for Supply Management's purchasing managers' index (PMI), an advance take on U.S. GDP and the April employment report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 146.72 points, or 0.40%, to 40,275.27, the S&P 500 .SPX rose 6.25 points, or 0.11%, to 5,531.38 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC fell 15.79 points, or 0.09%, to 17,367.15.

European shares gained ground on trade negotiation optimism.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS rose 3.46 points, or 0.42%, to 828.20.

The pan-European STOXX 600 .STOXX index rose 0.74%, while Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 rose 14.58 points, or 0.71%.

Emerging market stocks .MSCIEF rose 6.24 points, or 0.57%, to 1,103.34. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS closed higher by 0.58%, to 573.95, while Japan's Nikkei .N225 rose 134.25 points, or 0.38%, to 35,839.99.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes US10YT=RR fell 2.1 basis points to 4.245%, from 4.266% late on Friday. The 30-year bond US30YT=RR yield fell 2.8 basis points to 4.7099% from 4.738% late on Friday.

The 2-year note US2YT=RR yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 2.6 basis points to 3.736%, from 3.762% late on Friday.

The dollar edged lower as investors awaited further trade talks progress and girded themselves for an eventful week.

The dollar index =USD, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.59% to 99.16, with the euro EUR= up 0.33% at $1.1398.

Against the Japanese yen JPY=, the dollar weakened 0.68% to 142.69.

Sterling GBP= strengthened 0.76% to $1.3415. The Mexican peso MXN= weakened 0.09% versus the dollar at 19.555.

The Canadian dollar CAD= strengthened 0.21% versus the greenback to C$1.38 per dollar. Canadians are going to the polls on Monday after an election campaign in which U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and musings about annexing Canada became the central issue.

Crude oil softened as investors weighed a potential supply increase from OPEC+ amid ongoing trade uncertainties.

U.S. crude CLc1 fell 0.94% to $62.43 a barrel and Brent LCOc1 fell to $66.17 per barrel, down 1.05% on the day.

Gold prices advanced in opposition to the easing greenback.

Spot gold XAU= rose 0.27% to $3,327.19 an ounce. U.S. gold futures GCc1 rose 0.06% to $3,284.50 an ounce.

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