Asia shares were mostly lower on Friday, tracking Wall Street losses, while oil prices hovered around $100 per barrel as anxiety remained over the Iran war and its impact on supplies of crude oil and gas.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index slipped 1.1% to 53,867.74. Technology-related stocks saw some of the bigger losses, with SoftBank Group falling 4.5%.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.3% to 5,511.83.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.1% to 25,680.65, while the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% to 4,131.44.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.1% at 8,639.60, while Taiwan’s Taiex was trading 0.7% lower.
U.S. futures gained 0.4%.
Oil prices held steady. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 0.6% to $97.22 per barrel. It topped $100 Thursday, days after jumping to near $120 earlier this week. Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.2% to $95.22 per barrel.
On Thursday, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first public statements, vowed Iran would keep fighting and continue to use the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial waterway for oil and gas transport which has been effectively closed with significant marine traffic disruptions – as leverage against the U.S. and Israel.
Roughly 20% of the world’s oil is estimated to flow through the strait, and attacks on ships in or around the strait have already heightened concerns “over the scale of supply disruption and persistent shipping bottlenecks,” wrote analysts at Mizuho Bank in a commentary.
The remarks from Iran’s new leader came after U.S. President Donald Trump said the war was “very complete,” which have raised worries over how much longer the tensions could last.
Oil prices have been volatile since the Iran war began, with Brent crude surging to near $120 this week to their highest level since 2022. While the International Energy Agency said Wednesday its members would make 400 million barrels of oil available from their emergency reserves, a record amount, some economists believe that would do little to reassure markets.
Global inflation will likely worsen as oil prices jump, and rising fuel costs are already starting to hurt consumers globally. Rising energy prices could also, for example, push up AI and chip development and production costs, some analysts say.
Wall Street recorded losses on Thursday following volatile swings this month. On Thursday, the S&P 500 dropped 1.5% to 6,672.62, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6% to 46,677.85, and the Nasdaq composite was down 1.8% to 22,311.98.
Shares at some of the companies heavily reliant on fuel costs saw bigger drops. Cruise-ship operator Carnival fell 7.9%, and United Airlines sank 4.6%.
In other dealings early Friday, the U.S. dollar rose to 159.35 Japanese yen from 159.34 yen. The euro was nearly unchanged at $1.1511.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.
