The performance of Asian stock indices varied during trading on Tuesday, at a time when oil prices rose again, with Brent crude remaining above $100 a barrel, amid continued fluctuations in global markets.
The price of Brent crude rose by about 3% in early trading to reach $103.17 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate crude rose to $96.20, after falling to about $93 in the previous session.
On the other hand, US stock futures declined, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 0.3%, despite the strong performance recorded by Wall Street in yesterday’s session.
At the level of Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell by 0.09%, the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong achieved gains of 1%, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell slightly.
Korean stocks rose during Tuesday’s trading to record their highest levels in two weeks, supported by Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor shares, amid optimism about cooperation with NVIDIA.
The KOSPI Composite Index ended the session up 1.63% at 5,640 points, recording its highest closing level since March 3, thus reducing its gains, which exceeded 3% during trading.
This is despite the decline in the shares of “SK Hynix” by 0.41%, supported mainly by the rise in the shares of the chip maker “Samsung Electronics” by about 2.76%, after “Jensen Hwang”, CEO of the American company “NVIDIA”, stated during the annual developers conference that the Korean company is working on producing his company’s new artificial intelligence chips.
Shares of Hyundai Motor and Kia Corp also rose by 3.16% and 3.27%, respectively, after they announced the expansion of their strategic partnership with NVIDIA to develop next-generation self-driving technologies.
In Australia, the Standard & Poor’s/ASX 200 index rose by 0.3%, following the central bank’s decision to raise interest rates to 4.1%. Taiwan’s TAEX index also rose by 1.4%, and India’s Sensex rose by 0.1%.
Wall Street indices ended yesterday’s trading on the rise, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose by 1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.8%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 1.2%.
In currency markets, the dollar rose against the Japanese yen to 159.32 yen, while the euro fell to $1.1496.
This variation in market performance comes amid the continuing effects of energy price fluctuations and geopolitical tensions, which is reflected in the movement of investors globally.
