(Updates to midday)

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S&P 500, Nasdaq higher; Dow dips

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New French prime minister resigns; euro down

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Japan ruling party elects new leader; yen weakens

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Major stock indexes edged

higher on Monday, with technology shares getting a boost after

news that AMD signed an AI chip-supply deal with OpenAI,

while the Japanese yen and euro weakened against the dollar

after Japan's ruling party elected a new leader and France's new

government quit.

Bitcoin stayed near its record high on Monday, with

investors increasingly turning to alternative assets as a store

of value as the U.S. government shutdown kept investors

uncertain. The cryptocurrency was last up 1.61% at

$124,755.87.

The euro was down 0.2% at $1.1717. New French Prime

Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned on Monday, barely 14 hours

after appointing his cabinet.

The yen also declined after Japan's ruling party picked

conservative Sanae Takaichi, putting her on course to become the

nation's first female prime minister. She is an advocate of late

premier Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" strategy to boost the economy

with aggressive spending and easy monetary policy.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose while the Dow was

slightly lower, as the U.S. federal government shutdown, which

began last week, dragged on. The S&P 500 finished last week at a

record closing high.

"The market is extending its momentum bias. It's shrugging

off the (U.S.) government shutdown and, because of that, there's

a belief that perhaps the Fed is going to be more generous than

the market previously expected," said Peter Cardillo, chief

market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates again by 25

basis points at its October 28-29 meeting, following data that

shows a weakening labor market.

In addition, Cardillo said, "we're not far away from

third-quarter earnings, and it looks as though it'll be another

good earnings season."

Shares of AMD were up more than 28% and other chip

companies' stocks also rose amid optimism around artificial

intelligence deals.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 76.88 points,

or 0.17%, to 46,681.40, the S&P 500 rose 18.94 points, or

0.28%, to 6,734.64 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 113.40

points, or 0.50%, to 22,893.90.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe rose

2.57 points, or 0.26%, to 995.78. The pan-European STOXX 600

index rose 0.02%.

French political instability has ramped up since Emmanuel

Macron's re-election in 2022, with no party or grouping holding

a parliamentary majority.

"The bigger concern for the market is really what comes

next, because if Macron decides to appoint another prime

minister that's going to be the sixth PM in two years," said

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone.

Any newcomer would face the same challenging parliamentary

arithmetic and problems when trying to pass the budget, said

Brown.

In Japan, the Nikkei soared above 48,000 for the first

time after Takaichi beat the more moderate Shinjiro Koizumi in

the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership vote.

Short-dated Japanese government bond yields slid to a

two-week low as traders pared bets on when the

Bank of Japan will resume raising interest rates.

Most other major share markets around the region were closed

for holidays, including mainland China, South Korea and Taiwan.

Gold surged to an all-time high above $3,900 per ounce, helped

in part by the economic and political uncertainty in the U.S.,

France and Japan. Spot gold rose 1.83% to $3,957.25 an

ounce.

U.S. crude rose 1.3% to $61.67 a barrel and Brent

rose to $65.47 per barrel, up 1.46% on the day.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo and Lucy

Raitano in London; editing by Alison Williams and Nick

Zieminski)