By Sinéad Carew and Tom Wilson

NEW YORK/ LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) - Equities were a mixed bag on Friday while the dollar was lower as investors waited anxiously for U.S.-Iran talks scheduled for the weekend after U.S. inflation data surged in line with expectations on soaring energy prices.

While Tehran and Washington delegations are due to meet in Pakistan on Saturday, Iran said on Friday that Iranian assets must be unblocked and a ceasefire must take hold in Lebanon before peace talks with the United States can proceed.

Investor hopes for a break in Middle East hostilities had been boosted when Israel said on Thursday that it was seeking talks with Lebanon as Iran has cited Israel's continuing attacks on Lebanon as a key sticking point in its ceasefire agreement with the United States. The U.S. is requiring Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global energy supplies are shipped.

Meanwhile, the latest inflation report showed that U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in nearly four years in March as the Iran war boosted oil prices and the pass-through from tariffs persisted, further diminishing chances for Federal Reserve interest rate cut this year.

On top of inflation concerns related to the Middle East war, investors are also waiting for the first-quarter earnings season to begin next week, said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Since the war began you've seen extra pressure on Fridays because of uncertainty about what might happen on the weekend," said Tuz. He also cited "more uncertainty than usual about what's going to come out of earnings season from actual financial results and probably more importantly, the guidance about what's been seen by executives in a bunch of industries over the past month since the war began."

Tuz viewed results from TSMC 2330.TW as an encouraging sign for chipmakers as the world's largest contract chip manufacturer reported a 35% surge in first-quarter revenue, ahead of forecasts, thanks to artificial intelligence-related demand.

The report lent support to the tech-heavy Nasdaq as the Philadelphia semiconductor index was up 2.7%.

On Wall Street at 2:56 p.m. EDT (1856 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 258.57 points, or 0.54%, to 47,927.75, the S&P 500 fell 9.15 points, or 0.14%, to 6,815.51 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 58.11 points, or 0.26%, to 22,880.53..

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe rose 1.84 points, or 0.18%, to 1,034.47.

Earlier, the pan-European STOXX 600 index had closed up 0.37%.

Underscoring investor uncertainty, the CBOE volatility index reversed earlier losses to gain slightly on Friday after closing below pre-war levels for the first time on Thursday. It was last up 0.34 point at 19.83.

Earlier, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.9% to put it up 7.3% for the week, its biggest advance since November 2022. In a sign that the Middle East conflict is putting cost pressure on the world's second-largest economy, China's factory-gate prices rose for the first time in 3-1/2 years in March, official data showed earlier.

With the Strait of Hormuz still largely closed to shipping and concerns persisting over supplies from Saudi Arabia,oil futures closed slightly lower after a choppy session. Ship-tracking data showed on Friday that the majority of ships that have sailed through the Strait in the past day were linked to Iran.

U.S. crude settled down 1.33% or $1.30 at $96.57 a barrel and Brent finished at $95.20 per barrel, down 0.75% or 72 cents on the day.

In currencies, the dollar slipped on Friday, putting it on track for its largest weekly drop since January, as investors sold safe-haven assets on the assumption that oil shipping will resume if a ceasefire holds in the Gulf.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.22% to 98.66, with the euro up 0.26% at $1.1729.

However, against the Japanese yen, the dollar strengthened 0.19% to 159.24.

In U.S. Treasuries, yields edged slightly higher after the U.S. inflation reading and ahead of the peace talks.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 2.4 basis points to 4.317%, from 4.293% late on Thursday while the 30-year bond yield rose 1.6 basis points to 4.9142%.

The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose 2.1 basis points to 3.804%, from 3.783% late on Thursday.

In precious metals, spot gold rose 0.05% to $4,765.93 an ounce while spot silver rose 1.64% to $76.31 an ounce.

(Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Siddarth S in Bengaluru, Tom Wilson in London and Gregor Stuart Hunter in Singapore; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Kirsten Donovan and Matthew Lewis)