By CHAN HO-HIM AP Business Writer
HONG KONG (AP) — World shares mostly gained and U.S. futures advanced on Tuesday, with markets trading higher in South Korea and Japan led by technology shares after recent declines due to heavy selling of stocks linked to artificial intelligence.
Oil prices rose again as the situation remained volatile in the escalated conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.2% higher to 10,544.36 as new Prime Minister Andy Burnham was hosting his first Cabinet meeting. France’s CAC 40 was up 0.1% to 8,351.93, and Germany’s DAX rose 0.3% to 24,911.48.
In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi, which is heavily reliant on AI and chipmaking-related shares, jumped 3.6% to 6,747.95. It fell 4.5% a day earlier. Samsung Electronics rose 6.2%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix gained 4.1%.
The Kospi has gained more than 50% so far this year, but fell more than 20% over the past month as investors sold to lock in profits, wary of worries about a potential bubble in AI investments.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 3.3% to 66,232.19 after a holiday on Monday, recovering from some of its losses from last week.
Computer memory maker Kioxia Holdings surged 17.2%, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest jumped 7.7%. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group climbed 6%, while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron added 2.3%.
Taiwan’s Taiex, which also has benefited from the AI boom, was up 4.2%. Its advanced AI chipmaker TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., advanced 3.9%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged less than 0.1% lower to 25,132.29. Chinese AI startup Zhipu, or Z.ai, surged 36.9% following reports about its new data center that is powered only by domestic chips, while another Chinese AI startup MiniMax jumped 15.2%. The Shanghai Composite index added 1.8% to 3,864.37.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed less than 0.1% to 8,793.30.
India’s Sensex gave up 0.3%.
Oil prices rose after falling earlier in the day. Brent crude, the international standard, was 0.5% higher at $89.68, well above the roughly $72 per barrel level it was at before the war started in late February.
Benchmark U.S. crude was up 0.6% at $82.96 a barrel.
Early Tuesday, Iran attacked another tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil and gas transport. The U.S. announced another round of strikes targeting Iran for a 10th straight night. Iran has been retaliating against the U.S. strikes by targeting U.S. allies across the Middle East.
As the U.S. and Iran traded fire, Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a main mediator, for talks, but it’s still unclear if a new deal may be reached.
“There’s some hope of de-escalation between the U.S. and Iran,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary Tuesday. “This won’t be an easy task. Large divisions remain between the U.S. and Iran.”
A naval blockade by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis against Saudi Arabia has increased risks to oil supplies, they said.
On Monday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 slipped 0.2% to 7,443.28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.6% to 51,839.26, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite dipped less than 0.1% to 25,508.07.
Many of the major chipmaking and other AI-related stocks gained. Nvidia climbed 0.2%, Micron Technology rose 1.9%, and Broadcom was up 2%. AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, added 1.6% after it announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft on AI.
In other dealings early Tuesday, the U.S. dollar rose to 162.67 Japanese yen from 162.50 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1424, up from $1.1414.