* Trump set to address nation on Iran at 9 p.m. Wednesday

(0100 GMT Thursday)

* S&P 500 futures up 0.7% on de-escalation hopes

* Kospi surges as much as 9.1%, Nikkei gains up to 5.2%

* MSCI Asia ex-Japan index snaps four-day losing streak

with biggest gains since Nov 2022

* Brent crude extends declines below $100/barrel,

Treasury bonds recover

(Refreshes markets through Asia afternoon, Europe morning

trading, Rubio comments, fund manager and analyst comments)

By Gregor Stuart Hunter

SINGAPORE, April 1 (Reuters) - Stocks soared, bonds

rallied and the dollar wallowed on Wednesday, as hopes of a

de-escalation in the Iran conflict fuelled the biggest rebound

in regional equities in more than three years.

Europe's STOXX 600 surged 2.3% in early trade - on

track for its biggest daily jump in a year - as travel stocks

rose about 4% and aerospace and defence stocks were 3.6% higher.

German bund yields fell 7 basis points.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan

rose 4.7%, snapping a four-day losing streak to

log its biggest one-day increase since November 2022, after

President Donald Trump said the U.S. could end its military

attacks on Iran in two to three weeks.

"They're still quite far apart in terms of what a truce

means, or what peace means, but the market is embracing the fact

that they are talking," said Rodrigo Catril, currency strategist

at National Australia Bank in Sydney.

"That's a positive sign, at least in terms of signalling or

willingness to end the conflict," he said, speaking on a

podcast. Whether a compromise can be reached remains to be seen.

"While this is all happening, attacks are continuing from both

sides."

Robust economic data for March powered a rebound in Korean

and Japanese shares. South Korea's Kospi led gains,

rising as much as 9.1%, while the Nikkei 225 surged

5.2%, and Taiwanese shares gained 4.6% at the highs of

the day.

IRAN WAR DEVELOPMENTS

The rally shrugged off a report in the Wall Street Journal that

the UAE may enter the conflict and is lobbying for a UN Security

Council Resolution to authorise it to take part in military

action to force open the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Secretary of

State Marco Rubio said Washington will have to reexamine its

relations with NATO after the war ends.

Trump will provide an update on Iran in an address to the

nation at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday (0100 GMT on Thursday), White

House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on X.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.7% and Nasdaq

futures gained 1.1% after the post. In early European

trades, pan-region futures rose 2.6%, German DAX

futures were up 2.4%, and FTSE futures added

1.1%.

Stocks on Wall Street soared on Tuesday as traders bet on

the potential off-ramp to the war, sending the S&P 500

2.9% higher, while oil markets followed through on

earlier declines in Asian trading. Brent crude futures

moved 4.1% lower to $99.76 a barrel.

ASIA'S EXPORTS BOOM

South Korean stocks logged their strongest day in a month as

Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF ) surged 13.5% and SK Hynix

gained 11.5% higher, after exports soared 48.3% in

March, smashing market expectations.

South Korean export growth was "driven by favourable price

effects and strong global chip demand," analysts from ING wrote

in a research report. "Supply constraints appear to be having a

limited impact on key exports so far."

A separate purchasing managers' index gauge for South Korea

showed the country's factory activity expanded at the strongest

pace in more than four years in March, led by chip demand and

new product launches, while corresponding measures of factory

activity in China and Taiwan cooled.

"Despite rising price pressures, the Iran War has so far had

little impact on factory activity," Capital Economics said of

the Chinese data.

In Japan, business sentiment among large manufacturers

improved in the three months to March, a sign that increasing

economic uncertainty from the Middle East conflict has yet to

hit morale.

"Global tech has very direct linkages to global GDP, demand,

irrespective of how powerful or how strong this AI trend is

going to be," said William Yuen, investment director at Invesco

in Hong Kong.

"But then in the next 12 months or 24 months, if global

growth slows down, inevitably, there will be an impact on global

demand for technology."

RATE EXPECTATIONS

The U.S. dollar index slipped 0.1% to 99.62,

extending its biggest one-day drop in two weeks on Tuesday into

a second consecutive day of declines, as traders reassessed the

odds that the Federal Reserve may resume easing policy earlier

than thought.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond was down 4.8

basis points at 4.261%.

Fed funds futures are pricing an implied 17.9% chance that a

25-basis-point cut to interest rates could come at the Fed's

two-day meeting ending on July 29, up from a 7.5% chance a day

earlier, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.

Even so, swaps pricing indicates the odds of a cut by April

next year are viewed as little better than a coin toss.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was up 1.3% at

$69,064.01 while ether rose 2.1% to $2,150.93.

(Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter, Rae Wee and Lucy Raitano;

Editing by Lincoln Feast and Arun Koyyur)