Hong Kong, Jun 17: Asian shares were mixed and oil was trading below $80 a barrel on Wednesday as markets watched for details on the interim agreement between the US and Iran to end the war.
US futures edged higher ahead of the Federal Reserve’s policy decision announcement and after Wall Street closed mixed near their record highs.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was 0.8% higher at 69,926.08 near its all-time high set this week, after official data showed Japan’s exports jumped 17% in May from a year earlier, helped in part by strong demand for high-tech products.
South Korea’s Kospi edged 0.2% lower to 8,706.10 with losses in big technology stocks tracking a sell-off of artificial intelligence-related shares on Wall Street. Samsung Electronics, the country’s most valuable company, fell 1.9%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.8% to 24,273.95, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.1% to 4,089.26.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.5% to 8,965.30.
Taiwan’s Taiex fell 0.5%. India’s Sensex rose 0.3%.
Oil prices stabilized after falling sharply earlier on optimism of an end to the war and a possible reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for oil and gas transit worldwide. But challenges remain, including if the peace deal includes Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
Brent crude, the international standard, traded 0.3% lower at $78.76 per barrel early Wednesday after falling more than 5% on Tuesday. It was still elevated compared to the roughly $70 a barrel level in late February before the war started.
Benchmark US crude was down 0.4% to $75.78 a barrel.
“Normalizing (oil) flows will take time,” economists at HSBC wrote in a note this week. “Hurdles include mine clearance, insurance reinstatement, emptying excess Gulf oil storage, repositioning ships, and restarting idled production fields.”
In the US, the Fed on Tuesday began its two-day meeting, the first under its new chair Kevin Warsh, that would discuss interest rates with a decision announcement set for Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump has been pressing the Fed for lower rates to help stimulate the US economy, but fresh worries are rising on worsening inflation over the Iran war-caused energy shock.
Analysts are broadly expecting that the Fed will keep the benchmark rate unchanged. In the bond market, the yield on the US 10-year Treasury fell to below 4.44% from 4.47% late Monday.
“With weak wage growth and rent growth, underlying forces are pointing to inflation falling sharply once the energy price shock recedes. We don’t expect the Fed to hike rates in 2026,” Preston Caldwell, chief US economist at Morningstar wrote in a commentary.
On Tuesday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 fell 0.6% to 7,511.35 after setting an all-time high earlier this month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6% to 51.999.67, hitting another all-time high.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 1.2% to 26,376.34 following losses of some big tech stocks over renewed worries about an AI bubble.
Shares of Nvidia fell 2.4%. Chipmaker Broadcom dropped 4.4% and Micron Technology lost 6.2%.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, was up 4.8%, gaining for the third straight day since its Wall Street debut.
Yum Brands was up 1.9%, after it announced it is selling Pizza Hut for $2.7 billion with most restaurants purchased by private equity firm LongRange Capital.
In other dealings early Wednesday, the US dollar fell to 160.30 Japanese yen from 160.42 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1612, up from $1.1608. (AP)
