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World stocks vacillate ahead of US earnings

World stock markets vacillate as Europe debt problems brew; US earnings up next

BANGKOK (AP) -- Asian stock markets fell Tuesday while European shares clawed back previous losses ahead of a stream of earnings from U.S. companies.

Benchmark oil rose above $103 per barrel. The dollar rose against the yen but weakened against the euro. The greenback also slipped against China's yuan after Beijing over the weekend announced a slightly wider daily trading band for its tightly controlled currency.

Traders were awaiting earnings reports later in the day from a slew of U.S. corporate giants, including International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest technology services company. Its results provide a gauge of businesses' appetite for technology spending. IBM's results in the previous quarter handily beat Wall Street's expectations.

Other companies reporting quarterly financial results include Coca-Cola Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Intel Corp. , Johnson & Johnson and Yahoo Inc.

The results might temporarily divert attention from the debt crisis enveloping Europe's smaller economies and which now threatens to morph into something even bigger.

The yield on Spain's benchmark 10-year government bond jumped above 6 percent Monday for the first time since November. Greece, Ireland and Portugal had to seek bailouts after their borrowing costs rose above 7 percent, and traders are becoming concerned that Spain might be next. Spain has the fourth-largest economy among the 17 nations that use the euro and is widely considered too expensive to rescue.

"I think right now, market sentiment overall is still cautious because the focus is still on what is happening in Spain," said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong.

Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.6 percent to 5,688.69. Germany's DAX climbed 0.5 percent to 6,655.89 and France's CAC-40 added 0.6 percent to 3,224.99.

Wall Street appeared set to rise, with Dow Jones industrial futures gaining 0.3 percent to 12,882 while S&P 500 futures added 0.3 percent to 1,367.70.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell less than 0.1 percent to close at 9,464.71. South Korea's Kospi index slipped 0.4 percent to 1,985.30 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.2 percent to 20,562.31.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 ceded earlier gains and fell 0.3 percent to 4,288.80.

Mainland Chinese shares lost ground, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.9 percent to 2,334.99. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.3 percent to 936.74.

Hopes in China for new market-boosting measures are fizzling, said Zhang Jiuhui, an analyst at Great Wall Securities, based in Beijing.

"The authorities are focusing on inflation and monetary policies will likely remain unchanged for until the release of second-quarter data," Zhang said.

Toshiba Tec Corp., a subsidiary of Japanese consumer tech giant Toshiba Corp., soared 6.7 percent amid reports that it would acquire IBM's point-of-sale terminals business, Kyodo News agency said.

But other Japanese manufacturers fell. Mazda Motor Corp. sank 3 percent while Yamaha Motor Co. lost 2 percent. Video gaming giant Sony Corp., which recently announced 10,000 job cuts globally, fell 2.3 percent.

Scaled-back growth expectations for China contributed to slumping construction shares. Hong Kong-listed China National Building Material Co. tumbled 5 percent and Anhui Conch Cement Co. lost 3.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the dollar was slightly weaker at 6.2995 yuan from 6.3150 yuan a day before.

China's central bank on Saturday announced its would allow its currency to fluctuate by a slightly wider margin. The yuan, also known as the renminbi, can now rise and fall by up to 1 percent in value against the dollar on a daily basis, up from 0.5 percent previously.

The move appeared intended to appease complaints by the U.S. and other governments that say an undervalued yuan gives China's exporters an unfair price advantage. China maintains the yuan has already gained 30 percent in value in real terms since 2005.

In other currency trading, the dollar rose to 80.64 yen from 80.49 yen late Monday in New York. The euro rose to $1.3148 from $1.3134.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 15 cents to $103.09 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile exchange. The contract rose 10 cents to finish at $102.93 per barrel on the Nymex on Monday.

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Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

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AP researcher Fu Ting contributed from Shanghai.

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