Oil slides, caps gains on Wall Street

By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices slipped on Tuesday amid worries about a stubborn global petroleum glut, weighing on energy shares and limiting gains on Wall Street after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ticked up to intraday record highs.

Wall Street eked out gains following a strong session for European stock markets, with Germany’s DAX index <.GDAXI> jumping 2.5 percent to its highest of 2016.

MSCI’s all-country world index <.MIWD00000PUS> rose 0.5 percent and touched its highest level since late August of 2015.

The pound fell for the fifth day in a row after a Bank of England policymaker said the central bank will probably have to loosen monetary policy further if the U.K.’s economy worsens. The Bank of England cut interest rates last week for the first time since 2009 in the wake of the country’s vote to leave the European Union.

With bond yields low in developed economies as central banks maintain accommodative monetary policies, investors have sought equities for yield, particularly stocks with high dividend payouts.

“We’re probably going to consolidate and then head higher,” John Canally, chief economic strategist for LPL Financial, said of the U.S. stock market. “The odds of a U.S. recession are low. The odds of a global recession are low. Central banks are cooperating.”

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 3.76 points, or 0.02 percent, to 18,533.05, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 0.85 point, or 0.04 percent, to 2,181.74 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 12.34 points, or 0.24 percent, to 5,225.48.

Gains in healthcare <.SPXHC> and tech <.SPLRCT> sectors were offset by energy <.SPNY> share declines.

After more than a year without setting new records, the benchmark S&P 500 consistently has been reaching new peaks after breaking to an all-time high a month ago.

“The important thing is that the market continues to make new highs, albeit maybe intraday and maybe incrementally small, but the trend of the market is intact,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> gained nearly 1 percent, rising for a fifth straight session, helped by well-received earnings reports from reinsurer Munich Re and telecoms group Altice .

The pound fell 0.3 percent against the dollar and touched its lowest level in about a month.

Against a basket of currencies, the dollar <.DXY> fell 0.3 percent after four days of gains. The greenback was 0.5 percent weaker against the Japanese yen .

Oil futures settled lower as worries about a stubborn global petroleum glut offset forecasts for a weekly drop in U.S. crude inventories.

Brent crude settled down 41 cents, or almost 1 percent, at $44.98 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 25 cents, or 0.6 percent, to settle at $42.77.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury prices rose after a weak report on U.S. productivity and a reverse auction in which the Bank of England failed to meet its long-dated bond purchasing target boosted the appetite for U.S. government debt.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes rose 13/32 in price to yield 1.5419 percent.

(Additional reporting by Karen Brettell, Dion Rabouin and Barani Krishnan in New York and Noel Randewich in San Francisco; editing by John Stonestreet and Diane Craft)