Sawt Falasteen - Stocks rebound though tech stocks still suffer

Oil prices fell as officials from Iran and the United States kicked off talks in Oman on Tehran's nuclear programme and other issues, with Washington refusing to rule out military action.

The tech selloff has hit other risk assets, with bitcoin falling further and wiping out all the gains built up since Donald Trump's US presidential election win.

The digital currency plunged near $60,000 before paring losses, and has shed around half its value since touching a record high above $126,000 in October.

But Wall Street's main indices pushed higher at the opening bell.

"In brief, this is a bounce from a short-term oversold condition, a tactical rally effort, if you will," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

However not all tech stocks were recovering.

Shares in Amazon shares dove 9.6 percent after the computing and retail titan reported strong sales but significantly boosted tech spending estimates after markets closed on Thursday.

"It's been a week from hell for tech stocks as AI spending plans caused upset across global markets," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

Enthusiasm about AI helped propel tech stocks higher and equity markets to record highs but investors have recently begun questioning the wisdom of pumping vast sums into the technology with little clarity on the timing of returns.

Sentiment had already been rattled after Anthropic -- which created the Claude chatbot -- unveiled this week a model that could replace numerous software tools, including for legal work and data marketing.

After steep losses Thursday, European markets were in the green in afternoon trading.

"For Europe, this period has highlighted the relative safety of assets aligned with the real economy rather than technology," said Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets.

Meanwhile Asia markets turned in mixed performances.

Seoul -- which had led the region's January rally thanks to its heavy tech weighting -- ended 1.4 percent lower as it tracked losses on Wall Street.

In company news, shares in Jeep maker Stellantis plunged around 25 percent in Paris after warning of a 22 billion euro write-down due to misjudging the industry's shift to electric vehicles.

Stellantis shares are now down around 80 percent over the past two years.

Meanwhile, shares in British-Australian giant Rio Tinto finished flat in Sydney after it dropped merger talks with Swiss resources firm Glencore.

The deal would have created the world's biggest mining firm, worth about $260 billion.

Rio Tinto's London-listed stock edged 0.5 percent higher on Friday, while Glencore climbed 1.2 percent, clawing back some of the previous day's losses.

Toyota jumped two percent in Tokyo after hiking profit and sales forecasts for the current fiscal year despite the impact of US tariffs.

- Key figures at around 1430 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 49170.76 points

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.5 percent at 6,830.62

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 22,625.30

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 10,328.76

Paris - CAC 40: UP less than 0.1 percent at 8,245.49

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.5 percent at 24,609.50

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.8 percent at 54,253.68 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.2 percent at 26,559.95 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 4,065.58 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1813 from $1.1784 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3595 from $1.3541

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 156.91 yen from 157.02 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 86.92 pence from 87.02 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.0 percent at $62.64 per barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.9 percent at $66.95 per barrel

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A.AlHaj--SF-PST