World stocks have held strong as traders bet on US rate cuts and Japanese stimulus spending, balancing jitters about US regional banks with hopes for a quarterly earnings boom for Wall Street's dominant artificial intelligence titans.

Trading in Wall Street stock futures implied the blue chip S&P 500 share index and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 would open about 0.3 per cent higher as anticipated market volatility stayed relatively high.

The VIX measure of expected choppiness on the S&P 500 hit its highest level last week since US President Donald Trump unleashed threats of punitive trade tariffs on April 2. On Monday it stuck at 21, still above its long-run average.

"Risks are just piling up everywhere," Fidelity International multi-asset manager Caroline Shaw said. "There's... a lot of volati

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