* Oil surges as U.S. pushes allies to halt imports of Iranian crude
* Wall St rebounds with help from energy and tech stocks
* Dollar rebounds
* European shares steady after China enters bear territory
* Metals knocked back in latest trade storms
* Graphic: World FX rates in 2018 http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh (Updates with close of U.S. markets)
By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK, June 26 (Reuters) - Rising shares of energy and technology companies helped global stock markets regain ground on Tuesday, a day after a mounting trade fight pummeled equities, while oil surged more than 2 percent as Washington lobbied against Iranian crude imports.
Wall Street closed higher, aided in part by energy shares that soared after a senior U.S. State Department official said Washington was telling its allies to stop importing Iranian crude oil.
"Yes, we are asking them to go to zero," the official said when asked if the United States was pushing allies, including China and India, to cut oil imports to zero by November. Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 30.31 points, or 0.12 percent, to 24,283.11, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 5.99 points, or 0.22 percent, to 2,723.06 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 29.62 points, or 0.39 percent, to 7,561.63.
Tech stocks rebounded from a sharp sell-off on Monday, after U.S. government officials said plans were in the works to block firms with at least 25 percent Chinese ownership from buying U.S. companies with "industrially significant technology."
Apple Inc AAPL.O , which rose 1.2 percent, snapped a three-day losing streak.
Stocks were also propelled upward by shares of consumer discretionary companies and by General Electric (NYSE:GE) Co GE.N , whose shares rose 7.8 percent after the company said it would spin off its healthcare business and divest its stake in oil-services company Baker Hughes BHGE.N .
A basket of European stocks also got a reprieve. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 rose 0.09 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS gained 0.08 percent, after Asia had extended a sell-off that wiped $1.5 trillion off world stocks.
Despite the modest gains, investors remained wary.
"We're still in a tug-of-war between daily twists and turns of a potential trade war and the reality of a strong underlying U.S. economy," Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co, said.
Escalating trade tensions between the United States and China, as well as Washington and Europe, had led two benchmark Wall Street indexes on Monday to suffer their biggest losses in more than two months and launched China into bear market territory, with its major stock indexes down 20 percent from January peaks.
After seeing a surge in buying on Monday, U.S. Treasury debt yields edged higher as concerned lingered that trade tensions could hurt economic growth, though safe-haven buying was capped on anticipation of more interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. hit its lowest in over six months as the selloff in global risk assets eased and it remained under pressure from the prospect that rising U.S. interest rates will further support the dollar. prices, meanwhile, soared after the U.S. official said the government was pressuring allies to halt Iranian crude imports.
"We're going to isolate streams of Iranian funding and looking to highlight the totality of Iran's malign behavior across the region," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
Benchmark oil prices jumped over 2 percent and U.S. crude topped $70 a barrel for the first time in two months
Brent crude LCOc1 gained 2.6 percent to trade at $76.68 U.S. light crude CLc1 rose 3.8 percent to $70.68.
News that Saudi Arabia plans to pump up to 11 million barrels of oil in July, the most in its history, was outweighed by the renewed Iranian supply concerns, traders said.
In currencies, the dollar rose across the board as global trade tensions prompted traders to ditch most high-yielding currencies and investors focused on expectations the Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates. dollar index .DXY rose 0.43 percent, with the euro EUR= down 0.49 percent to $1.1645.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.25 percent versus the greenback at 110.07 per dollar JPY= , while sterling GBP= was last trading at $1.3219, down 0.41 percent.
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https://reut.rs/2KlD8Hb World FX rates in 2018
http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh
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