(Updates to midday)

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European shares touch record high

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Gold snaps winning streak

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Bank of England cuts UK interest rates, pound weakens

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Earnings season in full swing, Amazon ( AMZN ) due aftermarket

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks struggled for

gains on Thursday amid a spate of earnings, while waning

concerns over widening tariff conflicts capped gold's string of

record highs.

Meanwhile, a rate cut from the Bank of England (BoE) helped

European shares scale an all-time peak.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were up modestly, with financials

and consumer staples clear outperformers, and

benchmark U.S. Treasury yields snapped a three-day decline.

Honeywell ( HON ) shares fell after the industrial

conglomerate announced it would split into three separate

companies and provided downbeat 2025 forecasts.

Amazon's ( AMZN ) results were expected after the bell, with

the e-commerce giant under pressure to deliver on lofty

expectations for cloud computing after unimpressive reports from

Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Alphabet this week.

On the economic front, jobless claims, layoffs and labor

costs/productivity provided a prologue to Friday's keenly

anticipated January employment report.

Domestic and international political uncertainties continue

to simmer in the background, while fears that U.S. President

Donald Trump's approach to tariffs could escalate into a global

trade war have somewhat diminished.

"We continue to see much of the same that we've seen

witnessed over the last two to four months," said Oliver

Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors in New

York. "We are witnessing a resilient economy with strong

corporate earnings, against a backdrop of geopolitical concerns,

and an expectation of some sort of chaos down the road."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 139.61

points, or 0.31%, to 44,732.02, the S&P 500 rose 9.09

points, or 0.15%, to 6,070.36 and the Nasdaq Composite

rose 19.36 points, or 0.09%, to 19,710.54.

European shares touched an all-time high, powered by a slew

of upbeat earnings, while Britain's FTSE 100 also reached a

record peak as the BoE cut interest rates by 25 basis points but

warned it would be cautious going forward, in the face of a

potential inflation uptick and geopolitical worries.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe

rose 2.40 points, or 0.28%, to 874.09.

The STOXX 600 index rose 1.26%, while Europe's

broad FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 28.09 points, or

1.31%

Emerging market stocks were up 6.02 points, or

0.55%, to 1,101.81. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares

outside Japan closed higher by 0.61%, to 580.08,

while Japan's Nikkei rose 235.05 points, or 0.61%, to

39,066.53.

U.S. Treasury yields drifted slightly higher, on course to

snap a three-day slide to multi-week lows as trade war jitters

subsided and investors trained their focus on Friday's payrolls

report.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes

rose 3.6 basis points to 4.456%, from 4.42% late on Wednesday.

The 30-year bond yield rose 2.6 basis points to

4.6676% from 4.642% late on Wednesday.

The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in

step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve,

rose 2.7 basis points to 4.212%, from 4.185% late on Wednesday.

The dollar edged higher as the Japanese yen hit an 8-week

high while the pound sterling lost ground in the wake of the BoE

rate decision, after reaching a one-month high on Wednesday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback

against a basket of currencies including the yen and euro,

rose 0.15% to 107.81, with the euro down 0.31% at $1.037.

Against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.43% to

151.96.

Sterling weakened 0.6% to $1.2431.

The Mexican peso strengthened 0.47% versus the

dollar at 20.511.

The Canadian dollar strengthened 0.01% versus the

greenback to C$1.43 per dollar.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell 0.13% to

$96,799.18. Ethereum declined 2.82% to $2,707.61.

Oil prices inched higher after Saudi Arabia's state oil

company sharply raised its March crude prices.

U.S. crude rose 0.2% to $71.17 a barrel and Brent

rose to $74.75 per barrel, up 0.17% on the day.

Gold reversed its multi-session rally, which was driven by a

risk-off flight to safety that drove the previous metal to a

record high.

Spot gold fell 0.41% to $2,853.25 an ounce. U.S. gold

futures fell 0.53% to $2,856.50 an ounce.