Shares were mixed Thursday in Europe and Asia and South Korea’s Kospi dropped more than 4% following declines for some Big Tech giants including memory chipmaker SK Hynix.
Oil prices held steady, with Brent crude trading near $79 a barrel. Uncertainty about the direction of the US war with Iran is still overhanging markets despite hopes for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%.
Markets will get an update Friday on US jobs with the monthly employment report for July, and analysts say investors appear to be bracing for its potential impact.
“Asia’s chip selloff looks like a combination of profit-taking and risk reduction ahead of Friday’s nonfarm payroll report,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
Strong corporate profits and expectations for more growth ahead generally have been steering US stocks higher. But Asian benchmarks have been hit by bouts of selling of computer chipmakers and other companies related to the boom in artificial intelligence.
SK Hynix plunged 10.4% after dropping 30% ahead of the open in Seoul, while its larger rival Samsung Electronics lost 6.3% in the latest rout for shares linked to the AI boom.
The Kospi lost 4.6% to 6,296.38.
In early European trading, Germany’s DAX picked up 0.3% to 26,194.59, while the CAC 40 in Paris surged 0.7% to 8,726.92. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.3% to 10,923.34.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.9% to 65,683.26.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng declined 1.5% to 25,530.28, while the Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.6% to 3,900.35.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5% to 9,271.60.
US President Donald Trump said a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was coming soon. But there have been many stops and starts during the five-month-old conflict that has stifled the global supply of oil and rattled energy markets.
The price of Brent crude, the international standard, edged less than 0.1% higher to $79.50 a barrel. Oil prices have been swinging for months and were as high as $102 per barrel at one point during the conflict, jolting already stubbornly high inflation. Higher oil prices pushed gasoline prices higher and increased shipping costs for a wide range of products.
