By Marc Jones LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Wall Street opened higher on Wednesday as the blockbuster battle for Warner Bros Discovery vied for attention with Federal Reserve speakers and leaping oil prices after U.S. President Donald Trump's latest power-play in Venezuela. Netflix's shares opened 2.5% higher after the WBD board rejected Paramount Skydance's $108.4 billion hostile bid, terming it misleading, risky and ultimately "inferior" to the streaming giant's offer. Lively European markets had seen Britain's pound tumble and London's FTSE 100 hit a one-month high after weaker-than-expected UK inflation data all but cemented a Bank of England rate cut on Thursday. [.EU][FRX/] Commodity-linked stocks also traded up, with Europe energy firms jumping 1.3%, tracking a 1.8% rise in crude prices after Trump on Tuesday ordered a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. Precious metal markets continued their red-hot streak, with silver prices hitting another record high and platinum jumping 4%, having now almost doubled in price in the last six months. [MET/L] Influential Fed official Christopher Waller – who reports have said will be interviewed by Trump later for the Fed Chair job – said the U.S. central bank still had room to cut rates. "Maybe we're 50 to 100 basis points off of neutral," Waller said at the Yale School of Management CEO Summit in New York. "There's no rush", he added, given the moderating inflation outlook. "We just can steadily, kind of bring the policy rate down towards neutral." Wall Street's modest gains [.N] followed a volatile session on Tuesday when the benchmark S&P 500 touched a three-week low after key jobs data had failed to offer much real clarity on the health of the U.S. labor market. Traders are holding on to expectations for two 25-basis-point rate cuts next year, according to data compiled by LSEG, with the first expected in June – a month after a new Fed Chair is likely to be appointed. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett's candidacy for the Fed Chair role has recently received pushback from those close to Trump, according to reports, as well as from investment community heavyweights such as JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon and Citadel's Ken Griffin. OIL JUMPS ON TRUMP WARNING Trump's Venezuela oil embargo warnings had pushed Brent crude futures back to $60 a barrel in London. That, however, comes after a 5% slide this week as the prospect of a Russia-Ukraine peace deal – and potentially an easing of Russian oil sanctions – appears to have strengthened. In the broader market, the big global stocks indexes were mixed and the dollar nudged higher as investors mostly looked past Tuesday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls report to U.S. inflation data due on Thursday. While jobs growth rebounded more than expected in November following its biggest drop in nearly five years in October, the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the highest in more than four years. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries yields were up 1.6 basis points at 4.165% in early U.S. trading after falling 3.5 basis points on Tuesday following the payrolls data. Germany's 10-year yields, the euro zone's benchmark, dipped 1.5 basis points to 2.83%, while the UK's inflation numbers sent gilt yields down 5 basis points to 4.46%. Bond yields move inversely to prices. "The (UK) data obviously reinforces the prospect of a more unified BoE cut tomorrow," MUFG's Derek Halpenny said. With the UK jobs market also looking weaker, Halpenny said "there is a real and obvious need for rate cuts now", adding: "Not only tomorrow, but also in February", which he said was not yet fully priced into markets. CENTRAL FOCUS The European Central Bank will also be in the spotlight on Thursday, when it is expected to keep rates steady, while investors are betting Japan's central bank will hike rates on Friday. The yen fell 0.25% to 155.10 per dollar in Asia, though, as it continued to be weighed down by domestic fiscal worries. Total spending in Japan's draft budget for fiscal 2026 will likely exceed 120 trillion yen ($774 billion) to hit a new record, which would top the 115 trillion-yen annual budget for the current fiscal year, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Japanese government bonds also came under selling pressure again, with the 10-year yield hitting an 18-year high of 1.98% in Tokyo trading, although the Nikkei finished 0.3% higher. [JP/][.T] In metals markets, silver jumped past the $65-per-ounce mark for the first time, platinum leapt another 4%, while gold rose 0.3% to $4,317 an ounce. [GOL/] "Silver has become an object of speculation within the options markets and fundamentally I think it's based on some clear views that the demand outlook remains very positive," said independent analyst Ross Norman. ($1 = 155.0900 yen) (Additional reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Pablo Sinha and Noel John in Bengaluru. Editing by Alexander Smith and Mark Potter)
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