FTSE 100: European markets higher and US stocks cautious as earnings season rolls on

That's all for today. Head over to our US site for more market-moving stories.

From our US team:

Apple (AAPL) debuted its latest lineup of iPads during a virtual launch event on Tuesday. The new tablets include more powerful versions of the $999 11-inch and $1,299 13-inch iPad Pro outfitted with Apple's M4 chip and more vibrant OLED displays, and an upgraded iPad Air, which gets a 13-inch screen option to go along with the existing 11-inch version.

The company also showed the latest version of its Apple Pencil stylus complete with a new haptic feedback feature and an updated Magic Keyboard case for the iPad Pro line.

The new iPad Pros come equipped with Apple's new Ultra Retina XDR displays, which use OLED technology to improve overall colour quality. Apple says the screens, its most advanced yet, use two OLED panels to form what the company calls its Tandem OLED panel.

Here are some of the stocks leading Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page during morning trading in the on Tuesday.

Disney (DIS): Shares of the entertainment giant fell 8% Tuesday morning after investors digested an earnings report that revealed a surprise profit for an important part of its streaming business but also that the company expects weaker results in that segment for the current quarter.

DataDog (DDOG): The technology company's shares fell more than 10% Tuesday after the company said its president, Amit Agarwal, will be stepping down at the end of the year. The announcement came alongside a quarterly report that showed a beat on earnings and revenue.

Celsius (CELH): The global beverage maker's shares fell more than 2% following an earnings report that saw record sales for the quarter but still missed Wall Street expectations. First-quarter revenue rose 37% to $356 million, but estimates compiled by Bloomberg had expected an average of $391 million.

Crocs (CROX): An upbeat first-quarter report lifted shares of the footwear company by more than 10% Tuesday. Results exceeded Wall Street expectations for revenue and earnings.

Disney (DIS) said Tuesday that an important part of its streaming business turned a profit for the first time as the media giant reported fiscal second quarter earnings per share that beat analyst estimates.

The company's direct-to-consumer (DTC) portion of its entertainment segment, which includes Disney+ and Hulu, posted operating income of $47 million, compared to a loss of $587 million in the prior year period.

That doesn't mean all of Disney's streaming services were profitable. Including ESPN+, total direct-to-consumer losses amounted to $18 million versus the $659 million loss reported in the year-earlier period. Disney expects full streaming profitability by the fourth quarter of this year.

Oil prices have dipped today as tensions in the Middle East simmer. The latest report show that Israeli forces have seized the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

The move ups the pressure after Hamas said it had accepted a ceasefire proposal following weeks of talks with Qatar and Egypt.

Brent and crude futures contracts were trading about 0.3% lower on Tuesday afternoon.

A new ONS analysis on how people spend their time has shown those aged 25 to 34 years spend on average 2 hours and 37 minutes a day doing "free time" activities, like entertainment and socialising.

Other working age adults spent more time on these activities, such as those aged 45 to 54 who did them for 53 more minutes a day (3 hours and 30 minutes).

Meanwhile there is still a stark gender gap in unpaid work. The ONS said:

• Women spent almost one hour (57 minutes) more than men doing unpaid work per day. Women did this for an average of 3 hours and 32 minutes while men did this for an average of 2 hours and 35 minutes. Unpaid work includes activities such as cooking, cleaning, gardening, volunteering and caring for adults and children.

• The gender gap in time spent doing unpaid work was widest in households with children under 18, where women did 1 hour and 30 minutes more than men. This included an extra 30 minutes per day on unpaid childcare and around an hour more on unpaid household work. In comparable households without children, the gap in unpaid work was 41 minutes.

Nvidia was trending lower in pre-market trading as fellow mega-cap tech firms have been mentioning on earnings calls that they are boosting investment in AI infrastructure.

Nvidia's H100 GPU, which costs upwards of $40,000, enables the AI technologies that make ChatGPT, Anthropic, and other generative AI platforms possible.

Elon Musk said during Tesla’s (TSLA) earnings call that the electric vehicle manufacturer will more than double its H100 GPU chips by the end of the year.

Collaboration with Mercedes-Benz (MBG.SG) is expected to consolidate Nvidia's presence in the autonomous vehicles and other automotive electronics space.

The company — which is yet to report — is set to release of its next-generation AI chip later this year.

Oil major Saudi Aramco said first-quarter profits fell as the Gulf kingdom kept production cuts in place but it will pay $31bn (£24.7bn) in dividends.

The Saudi state-owned company reported a 14.5% drop in first-quarter net income to 102.27bn riyals (£27.7bn), down from 119.54 billion riyals for the same period in 2023.

Aramco said the decrease was primarily a result of lower crude oil volume sold.

The world’s biggest crude exporter is currently producing roughly 9 million barrels per day (bpd), well below its capacity of 12 million bpd. Saudi Arabia and other Opec+ members have agreed to slash production voluntarily on top of a 2 million bpd output reduction agreed by the organisation in order to boost prices.

The company declared base dividend payouts for the first quarter totalling $20.3bn and a performance-linked dividend distribution of $10.8bn to be paid in the second quarter.

The Saudi government, which directly holds about 82.2% of Aramco, relies heavily on the company’s payouts, which also include royalties and taxes.

The latest construction PMI shows a setback for house building activity in the UK. The index came in at 47.6 — any reading above 50 indicates growth, and below indicates contraction.

April data pointed to a moderate fall in residential building work, although the rate of decline was the steepest since January. Construction companies again noted sluggish market conditions and the impact of elevated borrowing costs.

Meanwhile the availability of materials increased, with lead times shortening. S&P Global said survey respondents linked this to rising materials availability and relatively soft demand for construction inputs.

Here's what's weighing the FTSE down. Not pictured: BP seems to have come off its sugar high this morning and is now lower:

Most of London's flagship index is up today but these are the top five stocks:

Kate Steere, property expert at personal finance comparison site Finder.com has the latest:

BP (BP.L) has revealed a fall in profits in the face of lower oil prices but will continue to pump money to shareholders as it announced a $1.75bn (£1.39bn) share buyback.

The oil major reported an underlying profit of $2.7bn in the first quarter of 2024, below a consensus forecast from analysts of $2.9bn.

BP said its earnings had fallen because of lower oil and gas prices compared with the same period last year.

The impact of the Whiting refinery outage and a significantly weaker fuels margin also hit earnings.

FULL STORY: BP profits slump to $2.7bn amid falling oil prices

The FTSe 100 hit fresh records this morning, above 8,300 points. Here's what Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Finalto had to say:

Yahoo Finance UK's Pedro Goncalves has the latest on the topsy turvy housing market:

UK house prices increased by 0.1% on a monthly basis in April, according to Halifax's monthly House Price Index.

A typical UK home cost £288,949, compared with £288,781 in March, when prices dropped by 0.9%.

Annually, property prices grew by 1.1%, compared with a 0.4% rise the previous month.

"While there is always much scrutiny of monthly price changes — and a degree of volatility is to be expected given current market conditions — the reality is that average house prices have largely plateaued in the early part of 2024," Amanda Bryden, Halifax's head of mortgages, said.

"While borrowing costs remain more expensive than a few years ago, homebuyers are gaining confidence from a period of relative stability," she added.

READ MORE: UK house prices rise despite high mortgage rates

We'll be watching for:

• CIPS construction PMI for the UK

• European retail sales data

Japan's main index was the star of Asian trading hours on Tuesday, spurred on by energy and insurance stocks. The Nikkei (^N225) finished around 1.6% higher after a rally across the US, with renewed hopes for earlier rate cuts improving sentiment.

Meanwhile, the Hang Seng (^HSI) fell 0.5% in Hong Kong after a rally led by tech stocks. Property and bank stocks dragged the index back into the red by the end of the session.

Here's our US team with the news:

Stocks closed near session highs Monday, as the S&P 500 (^GSPC) notched its best three-day run in a rip-roaring 2024. Wall Street continued to build on an end-of-week surge precipitated by a softer-than-expected jobs report that helped spur bets toward an earlier rate cut from the Federal Reserve.

The S&P 500 gained 1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) increased almost 0.5%.

Stocks extended their rally from the end of last week, getting a boost from a "Goldilocks" jobs report that struck the balance in providing welcome news for both the markets and the Fed. More than two-thirds of bets are now on a September rate cut from the Fed, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Most traders now expect at least two cuts by the end of the year.

Hey there, it's the Tuesday after bank holiday and it looks like the FTSE 100 is set to start the week off on the front foot. Overnight in the US stocks closed in the green and it was a mixed day in Asia.

Let's get to it.