Asian shares were mostly higher on Tuesday tracking Wall Street gains, with South Korea’s stock market rebounding after sharp losses on a tech sell-off.
Oil prices stabilized after the U.S. and Iran said separately they would send delegations to Qatar, although Iran said talks had not been arranged with the United States.
U.S. futures edged up.
South Korea’s Kospi index, which has performed strongly during the global AI frenzy due to growing demand including for chips from its firms like SK Hynix, gained 1.3% to 8,504.43. It declined 0.2% and 5.8% in the past two trading days, respectively.
Concerns over the sustainability of the boom in AI stocks over the past months have added to volatility across markets including in South Korea. On Monday, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced plans for over $500 billion of investments in the country’s chipmaking and AI.
Shares of Samsung Electronics were up 3.6% on Tuesday, while that of SK Hynix rose 1%.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.9% to 70,116.82. Japan’s stocks have also benefited from the AI boom. Chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron jumped 4.3%. SoftBank Group, an investment holding company that invests in OpenAI, was up 0.6%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 0.8% lower at 22,836.39. The Shanghai Composite index was trading 0.2% higher at 4,080.42.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged up less than 0.1% to 8,825.80.
Taiwan’s Taiex was 3.2% higher, while India’s Sensex lost 0.1%.
Oil prices fell modestly early Tuesday and were still trading close to pre-Iran war levels back in late February, as traders continue to monitor developments on U.S.-Iran negotiations for a permanent end to the four-month war.
Brent crude, the international standard, was trading 0.2% lower at $73.73 a barrel. It was around $72 per barrel before the start of the war.
Benchmark U.S. crude was down 0.4% to $70.49 a barrel.
On Monday, Wall Street returned to a gain after earlier losses. The benchmark S&P 500 added 1.2% to 7,440.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6% to 52,182.74. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite gained 2.1% to 25,820.14.
Intel was up 2.7%, Micron Technology climbed 1.1%, Nvidia rose 1.3% and AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, was 3.4% higher.
In other dealings, the U.S. dollar rose to 162.18 Japanese yen from 161.94 yen as the yen further weakened. The euro was trading at $1.1399, down from $1.1422.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.
