As Turkish authorities sought to retaliate for a bid by a faction of the armed forces to seize power, traders pared safe-haven holdings of yen, gold and low-risk government bonds.
"We're now on to the next shiny new object and that's earnings season," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. "As long as companies beat earnings estimates, investors will feel comfortable buying stocks."
Bank of America (>> Bank of America Corp), the No. 2 U.S. bank by assets, and fellow S&P 500 component Hasbro (>> Hasbro, Inc.) posted better-than-expected profit for the second quarter, mirroring the results of the few companies, including big banks, that reported last week.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> unofficially closed up 16.5 points, or 0.09 percent, at 18,533.05, the S&P 500 <.SPX> ended up 5.15 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,166.89 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> finished 26.20 points, or 0.52 percent, higher to 5,055.78.
Japan's SoftBank Group's (>> SoftBank Group Corp) $32 billion deal to buy British chip designer ARM Holdings (>> ARM Holdings plc) briefly lifted European equities to a three-week high.
The FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index ended 0.2 percent higher at 1,338.06.
The MSCI world equity index <.MIWD00000PUS>, which tracks shares in 45 nations, rose 0.92 point or 0.2 percent, to 412.15.
Turkish stock prices <.XU100>, however, were down 7 percent.
Selling in oil futures was stoked by reduced worries about widening political instability in the Middle East as the coup bid in Turkey ended. Downward price pressure persisted on fresh U.S. supply data.
Brent crude
The yen was down 1.3 percent against the dollar
The dollar index <.DXY> was little changed at 96.541.
The Turkish lira
Spot gold prices
Although concerns about Turkey's stability have abated for now, yields on 10-year U.S. and German government debt slipped on expectations the European Central Bank may embark on more stimulus to help the region's sluggish economy.
The 10-year Treasury yield
(Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Nigel Stephenson, Patrick Graham and Sudip Kar-Gupta in London, Wayne Cole in Sydney; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Meredith Mazzilli)
By Richard Leong