HONG KONG (AP) 鈥� Asian shares were mostly lower Thursday and oil prices slipped despite a flurry of strikes between the U.S. and Iran.
U.S. futures were flat, while selling of AI-related shares weighed on benchmarks in South Korea and Japan.
An by the Bank of Korea also contributed to a 6.4% 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 11.5%, while Samsung Electronics fell 8.8%.
Taiwan’s Taiex ended nearly unchanged. After the market closed, Taiwan computer , often seen as a barometer for the global industry and for the boom in announced an additional $100 billion in investments in U.S. computer chipmaking capacity, along with record earnings in the last quarter.
Tokyo鈥檚 Nikkei 225 fell 2.8% to 66,835.54. Shares of Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia plummeted 15%. Chipmaking equipment company Tokyo Electron dropped 4.5%, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest gave up 5.9%.
SoftBank Group shed 6.3%.
Hong Kong鈥檚 Hang Seng was a regional outlier, gaining 1.4% to 25,015.57. Technology giant Hong Kong-traded shares climbed 3.7%, after China鈥檚 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 1.9% to 3,882.41.
Australia鈥檚 S&P/ASX 200 closed flat at 8,840.70.
India鈥檚 Sensex climbed 0.4%.
Oil prices were lower early Thursday but were still at elevated levels as the U.S. , while Iran targeted missile and drone fire on Kuwait and Bahrain.
Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 0.5% to $84.57 a barrel. It was around $72 per barrel in late February before the war began.
Benchmark U.S. crude was down 0.2% at $79.43 per barrel.
鈥淥il prices managed to eke out a third day of gains amid few signs of de-escalation between the U.S. and Iran,鈥� ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary Thursday.
Rising U.S.-Iran tensions are 鈥渉aving a meaningful impact on vessel flows from the Persian Gulf,鈥� they said, with tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil transportation, still under pressure.
On Wednesday, Wall Street鈥檚 benchmark S&P 500 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鈥檚 rocket company, slipped below its initial public offering, or IPO, price of , before recovering some of its losses.
A U.S. report 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% after it reported stronger-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit.
In other dealings early Thursday, the U.S. dollar fell to 162.02 Japanese yen from 162.19 yen. The euro rose to $1.1473 from $1.1464.
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