Oil prices were lower early Thursday but were still at elevated levels as the US intensified its strikes against Iran, while Iran targeted missile and drone fire on Kuwait and Bahrain.
Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 0.4 per cent to $84.55 a barrel. It was around $72 per barrel in late February before the war began.
Benchmark US crude was down 0.2 per cent at $79.34 per barrel.
“Oil prices managed to eke out a third day of gains amid few signs of de-escalation between the US and Iran,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary Thursday.
Asian shares were mostly lower. Selling of AI-related shares weighed on benchmarks in South Korea and Japan.
An interest rate hike by the Bank of Korea also contributed to a 6.6 per cent tumble for the Kospi, to 6,816.70. It was the first rate hike by the BOK since 2023 and was aimed at helping curb inflationary pressures due to the Iran war.
Memory chipmaker SK Hynix dropped 11.2 per cent, while Samsung Electronics fell 8.2 per cent.
Taiwan's Taiex lost 0.3 per cent ahead of the release of an earnings report by Taiwan computer chipmaker TSMC, which is often seen as a barometer for the global industry and for the boom in artificial intelligence.
US futures edged higher. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.9 per cent to 66,767.64. Shares of Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia plummeted 13.5 per cent. Chipmaking equipment company Tokyo Electron dropped 5.2 per cent, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest gave up 5.6 per cent.
SoftBank Group shed 6.4 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was a regional outlier, gaining 1.7 per cent to 25,111.22. Alibaba’s Hong Kong-traded shares climbed 4.4 per cent, after China’s cyberspace regulator said Wednesday it had approved the Apple Intelligence AI tool for use in China. An Alibaba spokesperson said its Qwen model will be integrated into Apple Intelligence.
The Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.9 per cent to 3,921.20.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2 per cent lower, to 8,820.50.
India’s Sensex climbed 0.3 per cent.
Rising U.S.-Iran tensions are “having a meaningful impact on vessel flows from the Persian Gulf,” they said, with tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil transportation, still under pressure.
On Wednesday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 7,572.40. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.3% to 52,658.64, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite added 0.6% to 26,269.23.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, slipped below its initial public offering, or IPO, price of $135 a piece, before recovering some of its losses.
A US report showing inflation slowed in June and strong earnings results from American investment company BlackRock among other major firms also helped push the market higher. BlackRock's shares rose 6.6 per cent after it reported stronger-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit.
In other dealings early Thursday, the US dollar fell to 162.09 Japanese yen from 162.19 yen. The euro fell slightly to $1.1467, from $1.1464.
