Asian shares were mostly lower on Thursday, with South Korea’s Kospi down 6.6%, amid a flurry of strikes between the US and Iran. The interest rate hike by the Bank of Korea also contributed to the decline. Selling of AI-related shares weighed on benchmarks in South Korea and Japan.
Market Impact
Memory chipmaker SK Hynix dropped 11.2%, while Samsung Electronics fell 8.2%. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.9% to 66,767.64. Shares of Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia plummeted 13.5%. Chipmaking equipment company Tokyo Electron dropped 5.2%, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest gave up 5.6%.
Oil prices were lower early Thursday but were still at elevated levels as the US intensified its strikes against Iran, while Iran targeted missile and drone fire on Kuwait and Bahrain. Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 0.4% to $84.55 a barrel.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
