Global Stock Markets Higher After Wall St Sinks

BEIJING (AP) -- Global stock markets gained Wednesday after Wall Street sank on weak U.S. housing sales and a profit warning by a prominent social media brand.

London, Frankfurt, Shanghai and Hong Kong advanced. Oil prices rose more than $1 per barrel to stay above $110.

Wall Street futures were mixed. On Tuesday, the benchmark S&P 500 index lost 0.8%.

"The overall mood in equity markets remains largely downbeat," Jun Rong Yeap of IG said in a report.

In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London gained 0.5% to 7,519.16 and Frankfurt's DAX added 0.4% to 13,972.15. The CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.2% to 6,268.63.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 future was less than 0.1% higher. That for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost less than 0.1%.

Investors are on edge about the impact of interest rate hikes in the United States and other Western economies to cool surging inflation, as well as Russia's war on Ukraine and a Chinese economic slowdown.

On Tuesday, the Dow gained 0.2% while the Nasdaq composite, dominated by tech stocks, slid 2.3% after the warning by Snapchat's parent.

Investors dumped social media stocks. Snap plummeted 43.1%, its biggest single-day drop ever. Facebook parent Meta slumped 7.6%. Google's parent fell 5.1%.

The S&P is down 18% from its Jan. 3 high, putting it on the brink of a bear market, or a 20% decline from the previous top.

Homebuilders slumped after the government reported April sales of newly built homes plunged 26.9% from a year earlier. KB Home fell 2.7%.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.2% to 3,107.46 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo shed 0.3% to 26,677.80. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.3% to 20,171.27.

The Kospi in Seoul rose 0.4% to 2,617.22 and Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 added 0.4% to 7,155.20.

India's Sensex gave up 0.2% to 53,926.64. New Zealand, Singapore and Jakarta declined while Bangkok advanced.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is due to give insight into its decision-making by releasing minutes of its latest policy meeting.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude rose $1.28 to $111.05 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 52 cents on Tuesday to $109.77. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, advanced $1.16 to $111.85 per barrel in London. It rose 14 cents the previous session to $113.56.

The dollar gained to 127.05 yen from Tuesday's 126.82 yen. The euro declined to $1.0669 from $1.0693.