Sawt Falasteen - Mixed day for global equities as oil prices retreat

Brent dropped about four percent to under $97 a barrel, having soared seven percent Thursday. The key US contract, West Texas Intermediate, declined more than three percent after having gained more than six percent on Thursday.

The sizeable jumps had come after Yemen's Houthi rebels struck oil tankers in the Red Sea, potentially opening a new front in the Middle East war.

Despite the United States launching fresh strikes Friday on Iran, there was relief on markets that some ships were still able to pass through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a crucial passage into the Red Sea.

"Ships with Saudi crude are still crossing...so for now, it is not a full blockade, reducing a bit the risk of an even tighter oil market," Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities analyst at Swiss bank UBS, told AFP.

A Houthi spokesman said Friday that the rebels were not blocking traffic through the strategic strait.

On Wall Street, both the Dow and S&P 500 rose, while the Nasdaq retreated again, with semiconductor shares enduring another round of selling.

Angelo Kourkafas of Edward Jones described markets as buffeted by uncertainty over unpredictable geopolitical events and questions about how the Federal Reserve will weigh the latest jump in oil prices.

At the same time, "the bar is set high and there is also some skepticism about the sustainability" of this week's lofty corporate earnings, Kourkafas said.

David Morrison at Trade Nation said expectations that the US Federal Reserve could hike interest rates at its meeting next week have risen from 13 percent last week to 30 percent currently.

"Perhaps more seriously, the CME's FedWatch Tool shows a 90 percent probability of at least one 25-basis point rate hike before year-end," he said.

Besides the Fed, next week's schedule includes another heavy calendar of quarterly results featuring tech giants such as Amazon and Apple, as well as major industrial players including Boeing and Ford.

With tech stocks not as predominant in Europe, that region's main stock markets advanced on Friday.

Asian stock markets followed the sell-off Thursday on Wall Street as world markets were battered by a perfect storm of the resurgent Middle East war, the spike in oil prices and concerns about the artificial intelligence boom.

- Key figures around 2020 GMT -

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 3.9 percent at $96.78 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 3.1 percent at $89.31 a barrel

New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 51,947.25 (close)

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.1 percent at 7,411.98 (close)

New York - Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 24,975.82 (close)

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.9 percent at 10,736.23 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.9 percent at 8,372.28 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 1.4 percent at 25,099.00 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 2.7 percent at 64,611.15 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.0 percent at 24,963.23 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 1.6 percent at 3,814.20 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1373 from $1.1377 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3323 from $1.3315

Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.34 pence from 85.45 pence

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 163.84 yen from 163.86

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L.AbuTayeh--SF-PST