Hong Kong, Sep 3 (AP) Oil prices advanced on Thursday, with Brent crude trading near USD 97 a barrel, while world shares were mixed.
Renewed fighting between the US and Iran has pushed oil prices sharply higher, though US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he doesn’t expect the US bombing campaign to last “much longer.” Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1.7 per cent to USD 97.25 per barrel after falling early Thursday. Benchmark US crude advanced 1.9 per cent to USD 92.71 a barrel.
In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.1 per cent to 10,766.32. Germany’s DAX fell 0.2 per cent to 25,801.86, while France’s CAC 40 dipped 0.4 per cent to 8,250.94.
US futures were little changed.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.2 per
cent to 64,214.48. Among major gainers, OpenAI investor SoftBank Group rose 1.6 per cent, memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings rose 1.3 per cent, and chip equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron gained 0.4 per cent.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.3 per cent to 6,579.48. Samsung Electronics dipped 0.2 per cent, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix was down 1.1 per cent.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng edged 0.4 per cent lower, to 25,213.31. The Shanghai Composite index climbed less than 0.1 per cent to 3,942.09.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 per cent to 9,020.10.
The Taiex in Taiwan fell 0.7 per cent, while India’s Sensex lost 0.6 per cent.
The regional advance followed gains for stocks on Wall Street, where the benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.5 per cent on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6 per cent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 0.5 per cent.
Investors welcomed some encouraging signals about demand for artificial intelligence from two big tech companies, Dell and Palo Alto Networks. The AI boom has been the key driver behind the S&P 500’s gains this year.
Dell Technologies surged 15.8 per cent following strong quarterly profits. Among some of the biggest names, Nvidia gained 3.2 per cent, Meta Platforms climbed 2.5 per cent, and Micron Technology rose 2.4 per cent.
In the bond market, the yield on the US 10-year Treasury fell to around 4.78 per cent from more than 4.81 per cent early Wednesday after a global bond sell-off triggered growing concerns over inflation and the Iran war -caused energy shocks as well as rising US government debt.
The US is set to release an employment report for August on Friday.
In other dealings early Thursday, the Japanese yen strengthened sharply against the US dollar, with the dollar trading at 156.40 yen early Thursday, down 1.5 per cent from 158.71 yen late Wednesday. The dollar had surged to above 160 yen earlier in the week, raising expectations that regulators might intervene to prevent the yen from falling further.
The euro was trading at USD 1.1602, up from USD 1.1588. (AP) SKS SKS
