London (AFP) – Oil prices surged Monday after Iran and Israel resumed strikes against one another despite a purported ceasefire, while tech stocks again drove equities markets after heavy US selling last week. The world’s main crude contracts, Brent North Sea and West Texas Intermediate, both gained more than five percent in Asian trading hours and again neared $100 a barrel before easing.
The Israeli-Iran strikes were the first since a shaky ceasefire in April put five weeks of war on hold. The attacks sparked fears the escalation could unleash a new full-scale Middle East conflict. While Iran announced an end to the missile attacks and said it remained at the negotiating table, Israel vowed to press on with its military campaign in Lebanon. US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that both sides were seeking an immediate ceasefire and expressed optimism about peace negotiations. “Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way,” he added. Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG, said: “Investors seem happy to believe Trump’s protestations that a deal is close, even when missiles are actually in the air.”
**US tech recovery** – In Asia, technology stocks slumped following heavy pre-weekend losses on Wall Street. Seoul’s Kospi index dived more than eight percent to lead a rout across the region after Friday’s strong US jobs data fuelled bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate hike, hammering the technology industry. Shares in the chipmaker Samsung dived more than 10 percent and its rival SK hynix shed 7.7 percent. Tokyo’s stock market lost almost four percent Monday, and Hong Kong closed down 1.2 percent. Wall Street had tumbled Friday, led by a four-percent drop for the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
“Rising borrowing costs reduce the present value of future earnings and can also weigh on investment spending,” noted Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at trading group Swissquote. “Both tend to hurt technology stocks more than other sectors because a larger share of their valuation depends on future growth,” she said. She added that “the bloodbath across tech is not only due to strong jobs data,” noting “that investors who rode the chip wave would be tempted to take their profits and free up cash to jump on the SpaceX IPO” this week. The rockets-to-AI behemoth led by Elon Musk aims to raise $75 billion in the biggest initial public offering ever, as the world’s richest person pursues data centres in space and a trip to Mars.
But a recovery in US tech stocks helped Wall Street on Monday, with the Nasdaq Composite climbing 1.5 percent. “This is a buy-the-dip trade,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare. “Some of this is purely reflexive, with traders betting Friday’s sell-off was nothing more than an overdue drawdown for an extremely overbought market,” he said. Europe’s main markets ended the day mostly lower. Elsewhere, bitcoin hovered around $63,800 after sinking below $60,000 on Friday to its lowest level since October 2024. Following Donald Trump’s presidential election win in November of that year, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency had soared to record highs thanks to his vocal support for the sector.
**Key figures at around 1530 GMT**
Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.7 percent at $94.70 a barrel
West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.6 percent at $91.94 a barrel
New York – DOW: UP 0.2 percent at 50,973.17 points
New York – S&P 500: UP 0.8 percent at 7,445.92
New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 1.5 percent at 26,085.49
London – FTSE 100: UP less than 0.1 percent at 10,373.20 (close)
Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.2 percent at 8,199.29 (close)
Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.6 percent at 24,616.22 (close)
Seoul – Kospi: DOWN 8.3 percent at 7,484.41 (close)
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 3.9 percent at 64,024.60 (close)
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.2 percent at 24,657.06 (close)
Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 1.7 percent at 3,959.34 (close)
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1543 from $1.1520 on Friday
Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3341 from $1.3333
Dollar/yen: DOWN at 160.10 yen from 160.23 yen
Euro/pound: UP at 86.49 pence from 86.41 pence
© 2024 AFP
