Stocks firm as Fed rate cut bets soothe earnings season jitters

By Naomi Rovnick and Wayne Cole LONDON/SYDNEY (Reuters) -World stocks held strong on Monday as traders bet on U.S. rate cuts and Japanese stimulus spending, balancing jitters about U.S. 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% 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 U.S. 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-asse