{"slug": "oil-prices-slip-and-asian-shares-are-mostly-lower-as-investors-sell-chipmaker", "title": "Oil prices slip and Asian shares are mostly lower as investors sell chipmaker stocks", "summary": "Oil prices slipped and Asian shares traded mostly lower Wednesday, with South Korea's Kospi extending losses after falling more than 16% over the past two days, as investors sold chipmaker stocks amid doubts about massive AI investments by technology giants. The Kospi was down 1.3% to 5,587.82, while Samsung Electronics gained 2.4% after reporting a record operating profit, and SK Hynix lost 4% despite a nearly sixfold profit increase that fell short of expectations.", "body_md": "HONG KONG (AP) — Oil prices fell Wednesday and Asian shares were mostly trading lower as South Korea's Kospi extended its losses after falling more than 16% over the past two days.\n\nCrude prices remain volatile after the U.S. said early Thursday it had conducted a \"heavy wave\" of [strikes against Iran](https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-trump-saudi-arabia-israel-cbb2c3f49f3072c542fc6395468b64b5), responding to an attack on a U.S. base.\n\nU.S. futures edged higher [after losses on Wall Street](https://apnews.com/article/stocks-markets-ai-oil-trump-rates-b8bfaf782877957bbaa7196b70a4d725).\n\nIn South Korea, recent drops in its benchmark Kospi, a big beneficiary of the [global boom in artificial intelligence](https://apnews.com/hub/artificial-intelligence), have been seen by some analysts as a reflection of broader doubts about [massive investments](https://apnews.com/article/ai-inflation-federal-reserve-434f02e62a02f9b92e57995d9375df57) by technology giants in expanding capacity for AI.\n\nThe Kospi was swinging on Thursday and was down 1.3% to 5,587.82, after falling 10.8% on Tuesday and nearly 6% on Wednesday. The benchmark has fallen more than 35% from its all-time high of more than 9,000 in June, though it's still up roughly 30% so far this year.\n\nSamsung Electronics gained 2.4%, after the South Korean technology giant [reported a record operating profit](https://apnews.com/article/samsung-ai-profit-memory-chips-10c2c548a392988862d8c7bd3f6fae05) for the latest quarter, largely in line with estimates.\n\nChipmaker SK Hynix lost 4% after sinking more than 9% on Wednesday, when it also reported a record quarterly operating profit, which ballooned nearly sixfold. That was still lower than what analysts had expected and disappointed investors dumped its shares.\n\nIn Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 gained 0.6% to 61,778.02. Open-AI investor SoftBank Group fell 2.7%. But computer chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron climbed 4.4%. Memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings added 7.5%.\n\nTaiwan's Taiex, which was also lifted by the AI boom, advanced 0.8%. Its leading chipmaker TSMC was trading 1.8% higher.\n\nHong Kong's Hang Seng fell less than 0.1% to 25,779.70. The Shanghai Composite index lost 1.2% to 3,784.55.\n\nIn Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.9% to 8,959.90.\n\nIndia's Sensex was less than 0.1% higher.\n\nOil prices fell on Thursday even as the U.S. and Iran resumed exchanging attacks. U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran \"very hard,\" after it targeted a U.S. base in Jordan. Maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for oil transport, remains limited, putting pressure on global supplies.\n\nBrent crude, the international standard, lost 1% to $87.18 per barrel after rising sharply a day earlier. It was trading around $72 a barrel in late February, before the war began.\n\nBenchmark U.S. crude declined 0.9% to $83.74 per barrel.\n\nIn the U.S. on Wednesday, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.5% to 7,316.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.2% to 51.594.14, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 1.7% to 24,442.94.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/oil-prices-slip-and-asian-shares-are-mostly-lower-as-investors-sell-chipmaker", "canonical_source": "https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-prices-slip-asian-shares-051335971.html", "published_at": "2026-07-30 05:13:35+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-30 05:22:30.150490+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Samsung Electronics", "SK Hynix", "SoftBank Group", "Tokyo Electron", "Kioxia Holdings", "TSMC", "Kospi", "Nikkei 225"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/oil-prices-slip-and-asian-shares-are-mostly-lower-as-investors-sell-chipmaker", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/oil-prices-slip-and-asian-shares-are-mostly-lower-as-investors-sell-chipmaker.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/oil-prices-slip-and-asian-shares-are-mostly-lower-as-investors-sell-chipmaker.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/oil-prices-slip-and-asian-shares-are-mostly-lower-as-investors-sell-chipmaker.jsonld"}}