HONG KONG (AP) 鈥� Asian markets were mixed on Monday as selling of shares pulled benchmarks in Japan and South Korea lower, though gains for other stocks helped offset those losses.
U.S. futures advanced and oil prices gained, though they remained close to the levels they were at before the Iran war began in late February.
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran over the weekend as Iran launched fresh drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait in response to new U.S. airstrikes, adding to uncertainties clouding the global economic outlook.
Tokyo鈥檚 Nikkei 225 shed 1% to 68,704.70, after falling 4.2% on Friday. SoftBank Group, the multinational investment holding company which invests in OpenAI, sank 5.9% following a 12.5% drop on Friday.
South Korea鈥檚 Kospi lost 2% to 8,246.50. It was down 5.8% on Friday. Samsung Electronics sank 6%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix fell 4.5%.
Taiwan鈥檚 Taiex, also a beneficiary of the global AI boom thanks to its many tech companies including chipmaker TSMC, gained 1.1% as it recovered some losses from its 3.6% decline on Friday.
Japan鈥檚 and South Korea鈥檚 markets have soared as many of their Big Tech firms were lifted by demand for computer chips and other high-valued components used in artificial intelligence. Recent worries over AI valuations have trimmed some of those gains.
Hong Kong鈥檚 Hang Seng gained 2.1% to 23,153.89, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.2% higher to 4,034.08. Australia鈥檚 S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.4% to 8,798.00.
India鈥檚 Sensex was nearly unchanged.
On Friday, the worries over AI rolled through Wall Street, though shares ended mixed. The S&P500 lost less than 0.1% to 7,354.02 and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 0.2% to 25.297.62. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% to 51,876.11.
Micron Technology鈥檚 shares dropped 6.7%, Intel was down 3.4%, Nvidia fell 1.6% and AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, fell 2.1%.
In other dealings early Monday, Brent crude, the international standard, was up 0.7% to $73.27 a barrel. It sold for about $72 a barrel before the war began. Benchmark U.S. crude gained 0.8% to $70.02 a barrel.
There鈥檚 still plenty of risk facing the oil market over on U.S.-Iran re-escalation, ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a commentary Monday, as more questions were raised about the safety of ships in the following .
Oil traders have been 鈥渢oo optimistic鈥� about the timeline for a recovery in supplies, they said.
鈥淭his complacency is odd and clearly leaves significant upside risk if the supply recovery proves slow 鈥� or if we see significant re-escalation,鈥� the commentary said.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 161.81 Japanese yen from 161.71 yen. The euro was unchanged at $1.1386.
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