* Equities recover from early losses
* Travel sector stocks drop
* Gold, yen and Treasury bonds in demand
(Adds open of U.S. markets, changes byline, dateline; previous
LONDON)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW York, March 22 (Reuters) - Global equity markets fell on
Tuesday while safe-haven gold and government bonds were in
demand after attacks on the airport and a rush-hour metro train
in Brussels triggered security alerts across western Europe.
At least 30 people were killed in attacks on Brussels
airport and the train in the Belgian capital on Tuesday.
Travel sector stocks including airlines and hotels were
among the hardest-hit, although stocks had managed to recover
from sharper losses and bonds and gold eased back from their
earlier highs.
On Wall Street, the NYSEArca airline index .XAL lost 1.2
percent and was on track for its first decline in five sessions.
Cruise ship operators Royal Caribbean RCL.N and Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL)
CCL.N were among the worst performers on the S&P 500, down
more than 3 percent each.
"So far we are holding up pretty well with some emphasis on
safe haven," said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer
at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.
"It looks like the market impact will pass pretty quickly,
depending on follow-up obviously. If we see additional attacks
in coming days, that changes the equation."
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 23.35 points,
or 0.13 percent, to 17,600.52, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.48
points, or 0.02 percent, to 2,051.12 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 7.79 points, or 0.16 percent, to 4,816.66.
The FTSEuroFirst 300 index .FTEU3 of leading shares was
down 0.43 percent at 1,334.02. Belgian stocks .BEL20 were flat
after having been down as much as 1.4 percent. MSCI's index of
world shares .MIWD00000PUS was 0.24 percent lower.
In Europe, the STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure index
.SXTP was down 1.9 percent. Shares in major European airlines
like Ryanair RYA.I and Air France-KLM AIRF.PA also fell.
Gold XAU= rose 0.75 percent to $1,252.56 an ounce having
been up around twice that earlier.
Benchmark U.S. 10-year notes US10YT=RR were last up 7/32
in price to yield 1.8962 percent, down from 1.921 percent on
Monday. The yields earlier fell as low as 1.879 percent.
In currency markets the Japanese yen, regarded by investors
as a shelter from turbulence, rose across the board, notably
against the euro. The euro was last down 0.29 percent at 125.46
yen EURJPY= and the dollar was down 0.2 percent at 111.70 yen
JPY= .
The single currency euro EUR= fell 0.1 percent against the
dollar to $1.1227. The dollar .DXY was up 0.2 percent to
95.493 against a basket of major currencies.
Volume is expected to continue to lessen ahead of the Easter
holiday and investors were beginning to think about cashing in
on a steep rally in stocks over the last few weeks.
The move toward safe-haven assets dented demand for oil,
with U.S. crude futures off 0.1 percent to $41.46 a barrel
while Brent rebounded from a low of $40.97 to last trade up 0.29
percent at $41.65.
Global assets in 2015 http://link.reuters.com/dub25t
Commodities performance http://link.reuters.com/rac73w
Currencies vs dollar http://link.reuters.com/tak27s
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