Brent crude hovered around $90 a barrel after reports of fresh US air strikes on Iran raised investor concerns about the volatile commodity. West Texas Intermediate fell 0.3% to $84.22 a barrel.
Long-term US Treasury yields rose to near two-decade highs, adding to the cautious mood amid growing uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s next move.
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South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.65%, having earlier risen 0.8% after authorities tightened rules on leveraged ETFs following Wednesday’s sharp selloff. Seoul has promised further steps to calm the market and limit retail investors’ access to leveraged ETFs, after a rout wiped billions of dollars off investor holdings a day earlier. That selloff has pushed the index’s decline this month to a record 34.23%.
Within the Kospi, Samsung Electronics gained on stronger-than-expected earnings, while SK Hynix fell.
Elsewhere, Japan’s Topix fell 1%, while the Nikkei rose 0.87%. Hang Seng futures added 0.7%, and S&P 500 futures gained 0.4% as of 9.06am Tokyo time.
Currencies were steady as the Japanese yen was little changed at 163.29 per dollar, and the offshore yuan held near 6.7608 per dollar.
The caution followed heavy losses on Wall Street overnight, where semiconductor stocks led the decline. A semiconductor index fell 5.3%, pulling the Nasdaq 100 into a technical correction, about 11% below its record high.
Among big technology companies, Microsoft jumped more than 9% after reporting its fastest cloud computing growth in four years, while Meta Platforms fell over 7% after giving a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast for the year ahead.
Meta’s stock is now down over 10% this year, after the company reported a 14% drop in second-quarter profit, as higher legal and restructuring costs offset strong growth in advertising revenue.
