(Adds U.S. market open, byline; changes dateline; previous LONDON)
* S&P 500, Nasdaq hit record highs
* Gold slides to 2-week low
* Euro pinned to near 10-day lows on bleak outlook
By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Gold fell for a fourth straight session and global equity markets rallied on Monday, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 hitting new highs on revived hopes the United States and China could soon sign an interim deal to end their prolonged trade war.
A spate of merger & acquisition activity buoyed investor sentiment, while trade-sensitive miners .SXPP in Europe and semiconductors on Wall Street .SOX rose on reports suggesting the world's two largest economies were close to an initial trade deal. LVMH LVMH.PA agreed to buy luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co TIF.N for $16.2 billion and Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) Corp SCHW.N agreed to buy TD Ameritrade Holding Corp AMTD.O in an all-stock deal valued at $26 billion. national security adviser Robert O'Brien said on Saturday that a trade pact was still possible by year's end, while Chinese state-backed tabloid Global Times said Beijing and Washington were "very close" to a "phase one" trade deal. to the positive mood was the weekend announcement that China would seek to improve protections for intellectual property rights, a sticking point in the talks. being prepared to look at intellectual property is obviously the catalyst for a nice move higher, or a return to the highs earlier this month," said Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets in London.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS gained 0.67% and its emerging markets index .MSCEIF added 0.49%. The pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX rose 0.97%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and microchip stocks pushed U.S. stocks higher.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 137.25 points, or 0.49%, to 28,012.87. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 19.67 points, or 0.63%, to 3,129.96 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 100.31 points, or 1.18%, to 8,620.20.
Earlier in Asia, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS bounced 0.7% and Japan's Nikkei .N225 firmed 0.7%.
Spot gold XAU= fell 0.28% to $1,457.90 per ounce.
Oil prices were little changed.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down 6 cents at $63.33 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 was down 10 cents at $57.87 a barrel.
Core euro zone bond yields rose slightly, as positive trade developments trumped last week's weak euro zone data.
The German benchmark 10-year bond yield rose two basis points in early London trading DE10YT=RR before easing to trade almost flat on the day at -0.351%.
U.S. Treasury yields slid ahead of the Treasury Department's scheduled sale of $113 billion in coupon-bearing supply this week, and as investors focused on the likelihood that the United States and China will reach a trade deal.
Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR rose 4/32 in price to push their yield down to 1.7603%.
The dollar index .DXY rose 0.03%, with the euro EUR= down 0.1% to $1.101. The Japanese yen JPY= weakened 0.28% versus the greenback at 108.94 per dollar.