Wall Street was poised to open with gains Monday and oil prices jumped again as tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalated.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5% before the opening bell, while futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and Nasdaq futures added 0.2%.
Oil prices rose around 3% after the Pentagon said the United States bombed Iranian military sites, retaliation for Tehran's shooting down of an American drone.
Even amid the strikes,
U.S.-Iran negotiations continued, including on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil and natural gas transit.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose $2.52 early Monday to $93.64 per barrel. It was approximately $70 a barrel in late February, before the start of the war.
Benchmark U.S. crude was $2.93 higher at $90.29 a barrel.
“In spite of another round of tit-for-tat attacks, market participants continue to operate on the assumption that, sooner rather than later, the Strait of Hormuz will re-open,” wrote Jonas Goltermann, chief markets economist at Capital Economics.
In equities trading, IBM surged 10% after analysts raised expectations for the tech giant's stock price. Shares of IBM also closed up 12% on Friday, giving it a nearly 30% gain in May, when the New York company announced a $1 billion government grant to help it build a quantum chip foundry.
FedEx Freight, a spinoff of the package delivery giant, rose more than 2% during premarket on its first day of trading.
Nvidia also gained more than 2% early Monday after the chipmaker unveiled powerful new chips to bring AI functions into laptops and desktop computers, including those made by Microsoft and Dell set to roll out later this year.
Elsewhere, at midday in Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.2%, France's CAC 40 edged up 0.2% and Germany's DAX gained 0.5%.
Asian shares mostly gained and Japan’s and South Korea’s benchmarks hit records, led by technology-related stocks, as investors continued to see growth in AI and other advanced technologies.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 ended 0.9% higher at an all-time record of 66,934.33. It also crossed the 67,000 mark for the first time during Monday's trading, reaching 67,231.28. Shares of SoftBank Group, the investment company that focuses heavily on AI, soared 14% and became Japan's most valuable listed company, surpassing Toyota.
In South Korea, the Kospi index jumped 3.7% to 8,788.38, also closing at a record high, after hitting an intraday record of 8,874.16. Samsung Electronics, its biggest company, was up 10.1%. Official data on Monday showed that South Korea’s exports surged 53% year-on-year in May, buoyed by global demand for semiconductors.
The Nikkei 225 was up more than 12% over the past month, while the Kospi surged around 27% during the same period.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng traded 0.9% higher at 25,398.18. The Shanghai Composite index fell 0.3% to 4,057.74, after China reported over the weekend that factory activity in May softened with signs of slowing new exports demand.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down less than 0.1% to 8,729.40.
Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 1.4%, while India's Sensex lost 0.7%.
Three months after the Iran war began, uncertainties over a permanent end to the war are still driving market movements and keeping oil prices swinging, even as optimism on robust AI demand and strong corporate earnings have fueled a stock market rally including on Wall Street.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump met with advisers in high-level talks but had not decided yet on a tentative plan to extend the Iran war ceasefire by 60 days, while Iran had said a deal was not finalized. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz was also still in limbo. The strait has been largely closed and the U.S. has imposed a sea blockade on Iranian ports.
The Israeli army was also advancing in Lebanon as Israel targets the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, further complicating developments of a deal on the Iran war.
