Tech lifts share markets in Asia as oil slips - reuters.com

reuters.com

World shares mostly advanced Friday, helped by buying of technology-related shares, while oil prices slipped as traders watched for developments in the Iran war .

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have escalated after President Donald Trump said the Iran war ceasefire agreement was “over” and as the United States and Iran exchanged attacks .

In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.1% to 10,478.98. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.1% to 8,322.31, while Germany’s DAX also gave up 0.1% to 25,082.58.

The future for the S&P 500 edged 0.1% lower while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%.

In Asian trading, South Korea’s Kospi gained 2.5% to 7,475.94, recovering some of its losses from earlier in the week. Shares in memory chipmaker SK Hynix, whose debut on the Nasdaq in New York is set for Friday, fell 0.3% in Seoul.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% to 68,557.73. SoftBank Group, a key investor in OpenAI, jumped 10.7%, while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron added 2.7%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.6% to 24,175.12 and the Shanghai Composite index fell 1% to 3,996.16.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5% to 8,806.00.

Oil prices yo-yoed again on Friday as global oil supplies remained under pressure due to a limited numbers of vessels able to cross the Strait of Hormuz , a crucial waterway for energy transport.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.5% to $75.94 per barrel. It was trading near $72 a barrel before the war began in late February.

Benchmark U.S. crude shed 0.5% to $71.71 a barrel.

On Thursday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.8% and the Dow picked up 0.3%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 1.3% to 26,206.89.

Semiconductors stocks led gains. Micron Technology jumped 4.5% after the memory chipmaker said it would increase its U.S. investments, citing “surging demand for memory in the AI era.”

Shares of AMD , or Advanced Micro Devices, surged 5.7%. Marvell Technology rose 5%, while ON Semiconductor added 4.4%.

In other dealings early Friday, the U.S. dollar fell to 161.71 Japanese yen from 162.37 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1432, up from $1.1430.

The yen gained against the dollar after Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama told a parliamentary committee that the government plans to encourage big pension funds to invest more in domestic, yen-denominated assets.