World shares, U.S. dollar climb as N.Korea fears abate

By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK (Reuters) - World stocks rose along with U.S. Treasury yields and the U.S. dollar on Monday as investors regained an appetite for riskier investments amid an easing of tensions in a nuclear standoff between the United States and North Korea.

After a week of jitters that send stock markets worldwide tumbling, investor fears eased after South Korea's president said resolving North Korea's nuclear ambitions must be done peacefully and U.S. officials played down the risk of an imminent war.

MSCI's world equity index was up 0.86 percent after its biggest weekly drop since early November. The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 climbed and the pan-European STOXX 600 rose 1.26 percent following a 0.89 percent jump in MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan.

Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities said "the North Korean tension seems to be abating a bit," and that investors are taking a "buy the dip" attitude.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 149.22 points, or 0.68 percent, to 22,007.54, the S&P 500 gained 24.42 points, or 1.00 percent, to 2,465.74 and the Nasdaq Composite added 74.74 points, or 1.19 percent, to 6,331.30.

The CBOE volatility gauge, better known as the VIX, tumbled from Friday's nine-month high of 15.51 and was at 12.45, near its session low.

In currencies, the U.S. dollar was up almost 1 percent against the Swiss franc, erasing much of the greenback's losses last week against the Swiss currency, which is viewed as a safe bet during times of geopolitical turmoil.

TENSIONS ABATE

The dollar was up 0.4 percent against the Japanese yen, reversing some of its 1.37 percent loss last week against the safe-haven currency. Against a basket of major currencies, the U.S. dollar rose 0.3 percent.

"Easing regional geopolitical tensions are taking a toll on the yen, with the currency being the key underperformer (along with safe haven peer Swiss franc) globally," ING Bank analysts told clients.

Last week's equity market losses - and yen gains - were sparked by a war of words between Pyongyang and Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea it would face "fire and fury" if it threatened the United States..

That prompted North Korea to say it was considering plans to fire missiles at the U.S. island territory of Guam.

While North Korea's Liberation Day celebration on Tuesday to mark the end of Japanese rule could see tensions rise again, markets were relieved that the weekend passed without further escalation.

U.S. Treasury benchmark yields rebounded from six-week lows as the easing of tensions with North Korea led investors to pare back their holdings of low-risk government debt.

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 7/32 in price to yield 2.2115 percent, from 2.187 percent late on Friday.

Oil price futures recovered losses from earlier in the session as disruptions in Libya were expected to reduce the OPEC producer's exports.

U.S. crude rose 0.49 percent to $49.06 per barrel after falling as low as $48.37 and Brent was last at $52.27, up 0.33 percent after hitting a low of $51.60.

Gold was out of favor on Monday after clocking a 2.46 percent jump last week. Spot gold dropped 0.4 percent to $1,283.51 an ounce.

Tokyo shares bucked the advancing trend of other markets. The Nikkei index slipped almost 1 percent after hitting a three-month low even after data showing robust 1.0 percent second-quarter growth in Japan.

(Additional reporting by Sujata Rao, Shinichi Saoshiro, Helen Reid and Abhinav Ramnarayan; Editing by Bernadette Baum)