HONG KONG — Asian shares were mostly higher on Tuesday and U.S. futures advanced after shares rose to near a record close on Wall Street.
Oil prices fell as the situation in the Middle East remained uncertain.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.1 per cent to 70,683.98. The benchmark has returned to above the 70,000 mark this week for the first time since early July.
South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.9 per cent to 6,941.39.
Technology-related stocks in Japan and South Korea were volatile. Japanese chip testing equipment manufacturer Advantest gained 3.9 per cent, while OpenAI investor SoftBank Group fell 3.1 per cent after its CEO Masayoshi Son warned of potential dangers related to the technology.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics dropped 1.5 per cent, and memory chipmaker SK Hynix slipped 3.7 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng climbed 0.8 per cent to 24,234.19.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.6 per cent to 8,735.70.
Taiwan’s Taiex edged up 0.2 per cent, while India’s Sensex added 0.6 per cent.
Markets in mainland China were closed because of a holiday.
On Monday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 added 0.7 per cent to near its previous record high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.2 per cent, while the Nasdaq composite rose 1.1 per cent to an all-time closing high.
Technology giants supported the gains, with Nvidia gaining 2.1 per cent and Broadcom also advancing 2.1 per cent.
Surging oil prices and bond yields have added to challenges for the broader stock market and to companies, but expectations for strong company earnings have helped support stocks’ recent rallies ahead of the latest earnings season.
Oil prices declined early Tuesday. Brent crude, the international standard, was down 0.8 per cent to US$99.48 per barrel, back to below the $100 mark, but way higher than the roughly $72 a barrel level of late February.
Benchmark U.S. crude lost 1.1 per cent to $88.46 per barrel.
Analysts say upward pressures on oil prices have eased as larger volumes of oil have been crossing the Strait of Hormuz and oil flows through Saudi Arabia’s key East-West pipeline have been recovering, although tensions between the U.S. and Iran are still high.
“While there are growing signs of a recovery in oil flows from the Persian Gulf, the market remains nervous about potential supply disruptions from the region. This is keeping prices well-supported for now,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary on Tuesday.
In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields remained near their multi-decade highs. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield climbed to around 5.30 per cent, from 5.28 per cent on Friday, after it briefly crossed the 5.35 per cent mark at its highest level since 2002.
Investors are looking for higher returns to hold government bonds, as inflationary pressures have been rising driven in part by the energy shock from the Iran war, while U.S. national debt has surpassed a record $40 trillion.
The U.S. dollar rose to 158.15 Japanese yen from 157.91 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1209, down from $1.1223.
Chan Ho-him, The Associated Press
