World Shares Mostly Gain Tuesday       05/07 04:54

   Markets in Europe and Asia forged higher Tuesday after another day of gains 
on Wall Street led by technology stocks.

   (AP) -- Markets in Europe and Asia forged higher Tuesday after another day 
of gains on Wall Street led by technology stocks.

   Germany's DAX rose 0.4% to 18,401.00 and the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.2% 
higher, to 8,015.58. Britain's FTSE 100 surged 1.1% to 8,300.55.

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

   In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6% to 38,835.10. The advance 
was led by semiconductor companies like Tokyo Electron, which closed 4.8% 
higher, and Advantest, which picked up 2.2%.

   The Kospi in South Korea surged 2.2% to 2,734.36, helped by big tech 
companies like Samsung Electronics, which racked up a 4.8% gain, and smaller 
rival SK Hynix, which added 3.7%.

   Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.5% to 18,4779.37. But the Shanghai Composite 
index recovered from early losses, gaining 0.2% to 3,147.74.

   Australia's S&P/ASX 200 advanced 1.4% to 7,793.30 after the central bank 
decided to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.35%.

   While the Reserve Bank of Australia has likely set the bar high for any rate 
hikes, it "will probably need to see several more months of soft data before it 
is confident that it can loosen policy settings. All told, rate cuts will 
likely take longer to materialize than most are anticipating," Abhijit Surya of 
Capital Economics said in a commentary.

   Taiwan's Taiex was up 0.6%, while India's Sensex gave up 0.5% as the country 
began the third phase of its weeks' long national elections process.

   On Monday, the S&P 500 rose 1% and the Dow industrials gained 0.5%. The 
Nasdaq composite jumped 1.2%.

   Tech stocks were at the forefront, with familiar ringleaders Nvidia and 
Super Micro Computer again pulling the market higher. They've had a couple 
hiccups recently, but a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology has 
Nvidia up 86.1% for the year so far after Monday's 3.8% gain. Super Micro was 
up 192.1% after a gain of 6.1%.

   Berkshire Hathaway added 1% after Warren Buffett's company reported its 
latest quarterly results over the weekend.

   Apple slipped 0.9% after Berkshire Hathaway revealed it had pared its stake 
in the tech giant.

   The U.S. stock market has been swinging since setting a record at the end of 
March. It sunk for weeks on fears that stubbornly high inflation would prevent 
or at least delay the Federal Reserve from delivering the cuts to interest 
rates that Wall Street craves.

   But markets found a burst of optimism at the end of last week following a 
cooler-than-expected jobs report. It suggested the U.S. economy could nail the 
tightrope walk of staying strong enough to avoid a bad recession, but not so 
firm that it puts too much upward pressure on inflation.

   Traders are betting on a nearly 89% chance that the Fed will cut its main 
interest rate at least once before the end of the year, according to data from 
CME Group. That's up from from an 81.6% probability seen a week earlier. Lower 
rates would help ease the pressure on the economy and financial system.

   This week is relatively quiet since the bulk of companies in the S&P 500 
have already reported their earnings for the first three months of the year, 
with more than three-quarters topping profit expectations, according to FactSet.

   But several more big names are still on the way, including The Walt Disney 
Co. and Uber Technologies.

   Corporate profit reports have been better than expected not just in the 
United States but also in Europe and Japan, according to strategists at 
Deutsche Bank. Global earnings growth is on track for a second straight quarter 
of growth following four consecutive declines.

   In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude oil added 32 cents to $78.80 per 
barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 37 
cents on Monday.

   Brent crude, the international standard, was also up 32 cents, at $83.65 per 
barrel.

   The dollar rose to 154.34 Japanese yen from 153.90 yen. The euro fell to 
$1.0764 from $1.0769.