Asian shares were mostly higher Wednesday after US stocks slipped a bit further from their records, while oil prices advanced as doubts persisted over when the war with Iran will allow crude to flow freely again.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.8% to 67,524.06.
In South Korea, the Kospi gained 3.7% to 6,579.04 on renewed buying of computer chipmakers. Samsung Electronics gained 6.7% and memory chipmaker SK Hynix was up 5.5%.
Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 0.9%.
The Shanghai Composite index added 0.3% to 3,946.68, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 1% to 25,401.92.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.5% to 9,209.40.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, was up 1% at $89.79 early Wednesday. U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 1% to $84.07.
Iran has rejected US President Donald Trump’s comment that since Iran is seeking compensation as part of any talks on ending the war, he would demand the same.
The United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, which led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and kept much of the world’s oil pent up in the Middle East. Last month alone, Brent’s price veered between $72 and $102 per barrel.
Meanwhile an attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on a vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, at Yemen’s southern tip, has raised concerns that the violence could reignite civil war and further threaten regional shipping routes.
“The renewed hostilities between the US and Iran suggest that a long-term reduction in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is now the most likely scenario,” Ben May, director of global macro research at Oxford Economics, said in a report.
The report forecast that Brent crude will average $85 a barrel for the rest of this year before gradually falling to about $65 a barrel by late 2027.
Higher oil prices make inflation worse, and they have sent the average cost for a gallon of regular gasoline to $4.01, according to AAA. That’s up from less than $3.14 a year ago.
That has Wall Street’s attention focused on Wednesday, when the U.S. government will release the latest monthly reading on inflation. Economists expect it to show inflation slipped to 3.4% in July from 3.5% in June.
Tuesday on Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% for a second modest drop since setting its all-time high on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 184 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 0.6%.
Cooler inflation could relieve pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to help tamp down price increases. Higher rates could curb inflation but they also would drag on the overall US economy by making it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow money. They also would undercut prices for stocks and other investments.
Treasury yields have jumped since the war with Iran because of higher oil prices and worries about inflation, sending long-term mortgage rates to their highest levels in a year.
In other dealings early Wednesday, the US dollar rose to 159.35 Japanese yen from 159.30 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1537 from $1.1544.
