Oil prices edge lower, while Asian shares rise, tracking Wall Street gains

HONG KONG: Oil prices slipped Thursday after recent gains, with Brent crude trading near USD 95 a barrel, while Asian shares advanced.

US futures edged higher.

Renewed fighting between the US and Iran pushed oil prices sharply higher earlier in the week. US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he doesn't expect the US bombing campaign to last “much longer.”

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.4 per cent to USD 95.26 per barrel. Benchmark US crude shed 0.1 per cent to USD 90.84 a barrel.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 advanced 0.2 per cent to 64,455.83. Among major gainers, OpenAI investor SoftBank Group rose 2.9 per cent, memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings rose 0.6 per cent, and chip equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron gained 0.8 per cent.

South Korea's Kospi rose 1.4 per cent to 6,656.81. Samsung Electronics was 1.3 per cent higher, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix was up 1.4 per cent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng edged 0.1 per cent higher, to 25,344.80. The Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.4 per cent to 3,958.79.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 per cent to 9,025.10.

The Taiex in Taiwan rose 0.6 per cent, while India's Sensex climbed 0.3 per cent.

The regional advance followed gains for stocks on Wall Street, where the benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.5 per cent on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6 per cent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 0.5 per cent.

Investors welcomed some encouraging signals about demand for artificial intelligence from two big tech companies, Dell and Palo Alto Networks. The AI boom has been the key driver behind the S&P 500's gains this year.

Dell Technologies surged 15.8 per cent following strong quarterly profits. Among some of the biggest names, Nvidia gained 3.2 per cent, Meta Platforms climbed 2.5 per cent, and Micron Technology rose 2.4 per cent.

Other big tech companies tied to the AI boom also rallied. Chipmaker Nvidia, whose big market value tends to give it more influence over the broader market's direction, rose 3.2 per cent, while computer memory seller Micron Technology gained 2.4 per cent.

In the bond market, the yield on the US 10-year Treasury fell to 4.77 per cent from more than 4.81 per cent early Wednesday after a global bond sell-off triggered growing concerns over inflation and the Iran war-caused energy shocks as well as rising US government debt.

The US is set to release an employment report for August on Friday.

In other dealings early Thursday, the Japanese yen strengthened sharply against the US dollar, with the dollar trading at 157.78 yen early Thursday, down from 158.71 yen late Wednesday. The dollar had surged to above 160 yen earlier in the week, raising expectations that regulators might intervene to prevent the yen from falling further.

The euro was trading at USD 1.1598, up from USD 1.1588.