Wall Street futures were steady on Friday, the U.S. dollar fell and global stock markets held close to their recent record highs, as traders waited for developments on tariffs and Ukraine.

Investors are keeping an eye on news from the Munich Security Conference, where U.S. Vice President JD Vance warned Russia that Washington could hit Moscow with sanctions if it does not agree to a good peace deal with Ukraine, while urging Europe to spend more on defence. Vance is due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

U.S. President Donald Trump tasked his economics team with devising plans for reciprocal tariffs on every country that taxes U.S. imports - but traders sought some relief in the fact that the directive stopped short of imposing new tariffs.

“As much as Mr Trump has been agitating the tariff stick… what’s coming out of all of this is that in fact he’s dialing back on tariffs," said Kevin Thozet, a member of the investment committee at Carmignac.

European stock markets were on track for their eighth consecutive week of gains, having outperformed U.S. stocks since start of the year. Analysts have attributed that to hopes there could be a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the prospect of interest rate cuts and U.S. tariffs being less severe than feared.

The U.S. dollar fell, with the dollar index down 0.3% on the day at 106.76 at 1356 GMT.

At 1352 GMT, U.S. stock futures were flat on the day, with S&P 500 e-minis and Nasdaq e-minis both down by less than 0.1%.

Wall Street was boosted in the previous session by gains in tech stocks, and U.S. stock indexes were on track for a weekly rise.

The MSCI World Equity index was up by 0.2%.

Oil prices rose, helped by rising fuel demand and expectations that Trump's plans for reciprocal tariffs would not come into effect before April.

Brent futures were up 0.7% at $75.51 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 0.6%, at $71.69.

Still, there were signs of caution persisting in the market, with safe-haven gold on track for its seventh weekly gain in a row due to fears over a potential global trade war.

U.S. Treasury yields were a touch lower, with the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield down 5 basis points at 4.4724%.

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell reiterated on Wednesday that the central bank is in no rush to cut interest rates.

Germany's 10-year government bond yield was little changed at 2.417%.