Asian shares were mixed in subdued trading early Tuesday as recent enthusiasm cooled and markets faced uncertainty about efforts to end the war in Iran. The numbers moved first, but the force behind them was the same old machinery: war, oil, and the financial class trying to price the damage while ordinary people absorb the fallout.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.9% in morning trading to 71,681.29. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up less than 0.1% in morning trading at 8,822.10. South Korea’s Kospi dipped 2.8% to 8,863.52. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.4% to 23,678.22, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.2% to 4,170.58. Neil Newman, Managing Director, Head of Strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, said, “We’ve had eight days of strong markets. The market was up for about 12.5%, and now it has cooled off a little bit.”
Who Gets Shaken First
On Wall Street, stocks drifted through a mixed day of trading on Monday after oil prices eased and Big Tech stocks declined. The S&P 500 slipped 0.4%, coming off 11 winning weeks in the last 12, and pulled 1.8% below its all-time high set early this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 148 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite slumped 1.3%. The S&P 500 fell 27.79 points to 7,472.79. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 148.01 to 51,712.71, and the Nasdaq composite fell 351.33 to 26,166.60.
The market’s language is neat, but the hierarchy is plain: a few giant firms and financial institutions move the numbers, while everyone else is left to live with the consequences of their bets, their losses, and their appetite for risk.
War, Oil, and the Price of Power
In the oil market, prices fell following talks over the weekend between the United States and Iran on their war. U.S. Vice President JD Vance said they created a “good foundation for a successful final deal.” An end to the war could open the Strait of Hormuz for oil tankers and allow for the full resumption of deliveries from the Persian Gulf. Iran’s military said Saturday that it had closed the strait again, though U.S. Central Command has disputed that. Early Tuesday, benchmark U.S. crude rose 35 cents to $74.21 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 23 cents to $78.13 a barrel.
The people who pay for these maneuvers are not the ones speaking in polished phrases about “final deal” foundations. They are the ones facing higher costs, unstable supplies, and the ripple effects of a war that turns basic necessities into leverage.
What the Financial Apparatus Calls Stability
The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.50% from 4.46%. Yields have been climbing because of speculation the Federal Reserve may hike interest rates this year to keep a lid on inflation, which has been accelerating because of expensive oil caused by the Iran war. Economists expect a report on Thursday to show a measure of inflation for U.S. consumers sped up to 4.1% in May from 3.8% in April.
That is the familiar loop: war drives up oil, oil drives up inflation, and the central bank is positioned as the manager of the damage. The costs move downward through the system, landing on consumers while the institutions at the top debate how hard to squeeze.
SpaceX fell 16.4% to $154.60, the third straight drop for the company behind xAI since a big three-day run following its ballyhooed debut on the U.S. stock market, when it initially sold its stock at $135 per share. The day’s heaviest weights on the S&P 500 included drops of 5% for Alphabet, 4.7% for Amazon and 4.5% for Broadcom.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar edged up to 161.60 Japanese yen from 161.52 yen. The euro cost $1.1427, down from $1.1431. AP Business Writer Stan Choe in New York and AP Senior Producer Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed to this report.