* Oil surges on U.S. plans to end Iran export sanction waivers
* European oil companies lift regional equity indexes
* Wall Street gains on strong corporate results
* Dollar strong as traders await U.S. GDP data on Friday
By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - European energy shares had their best day since January on the back of higher oil prices on Tuesday while Wall Street rose on upbeat results that eased fears of slowing profits.
News that the United States told buyers of Iranian oil to stop purchases by May 1 or face sanctions lifted Brent, the global benchmark LCOc1 , and made for a lively return from a four-day Easter break for European markets. O/R oil and gas shares .SXEP jumped more than 2%, with BP Plc BP.L and Royal Dutch Shell Plc RDSa.L lifting the FTSE 100 index .FTSE to six-month highs, while the FTSEurofirst 300 Index <.FTEU3) of leading regional shares hit eight-month highs.
The main U.S. indexes hovered below record highs as strong results from Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) Co KO.N , Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) TWTR.N and a host of industrial companies allayed concerns about the earnings outlook.
The government shutdown earlier this year weakened the economy and corporate growth but since March companies have done extraordinarily well and growth continues strong, said George Boyan, president of Leumi Investment Services in New York.
"We remain overweight (in equities) and any type of pullback we would view as an opportunity to add equity exposure," Boyan said. "We've enjoyed quite a run but there's nothing to causes me to want to take off exposure at this point."
Twitter surged 16.5%, its biggest single-day jump since October 2017, after posting better-than-expected quarterly revenue and a surprising rise in monthly active users. rose 2.6% after its quarterly sales beat estimates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 70.32 points, or 0.27%, to 26,581.37. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 13.96 points, or 0.48%, to 2,921.93 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 55.96 points, or 0.7%, to 8,071.23.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS gained 0.28%.
The dollar climbed across the board as traders favored the greenback ahead of Friday's release of U.S. gross domestic product for the first three months of 2019.
The dollar was supported by data that showed sales of new U.S. single-family homes jumped to a near 1-1/2-year high in March. data followed recent upbeat news on retail sales and exports, which have eased concerns of a sharply slowing U.S. economy, analysts said.
The dollar index, .DXY which measures the greenback against six currencies, rose 0.41% after hitting its highest since June 2017. The euro fell 0.46% against the dollar, slipping below $1.12 for the first time in nearly three weeks.
The Japanese yen JPY= strengthened 0.02% versus the greenback at 111.92 per dollar.
Oil prices hit their highest since November.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose as high as $74.70, a level not seen since Nov. 1, before paring gains. Brent futures rose 58 cents to $74.62 a barrel.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 rose $1.03 to $66.58 a barrel.
Treasury yields fell, a counter-trend in the broader rise in yields over the past month. As the economic outlook has improved, yields have risen back from late-March lows.
Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR rose 4/32 in price to push its yield down to 2.5758%.
The Swiss franc burrowed to a new 16-month low on talk of even more negative rates. Two usual beneficiaries of higher oil prices, the Canadian dollar CAD= and Norwegian crown NOK= , both struggled despite the crude rally. /FRX
In China, major benchmarks .SSEC had dipped in and out of negative territory on concern that Beijing will slow the pace of policy easing after unexpectedly strong first-quarter economic data last week. blue-chip stocks .CSI300 have surged over 30 percent so far this year on expectations of more stimulus and hopes Beijing and Washington will reach an agreement to end their nine-month trade dispute.
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