Tehran launched fresh drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait after new U.S. airstrikes, and world shares lurched into another uneasy Monday as oil prices rose and U.S. futures advanced. The people at the bottom of this system don’t get to vote on any of it. They just absorb the shock.
War, Markets, and the People Paying
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.9% to $73.25 a barrel in early Monday trading. It sold for about $72 a barrel before the war began. Benchmark U.S. crude gained 1.2% to $70.06 a barrel. The price moves came as tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalated over the weekend, with Tehran answering the airstrikes by hitting Bahrain and Kuwait with drones and missiles. The machinery of state power keeps grinding, and the bill lands on everyone else through fuel, shipping, and the daily cost of keeping the world’s commerce moving.
ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a Monday commentary that there’s still plenty of risk facing the oil market, especially after more questions were raised about the safety of ships in the Strait of Hormuz following attacks on vessels. Oil traders, they said, have been “too optimistic” about the timeline for a recovery in Persian Gulf supplies. “This complacency is odd and clearly leaves significant upside risk if the supply recovery proves slow — or if we see significant re-escalation,” the commentary said. That’s the language of the market staring at its own fragility while ordinary people are left to live inside the consequences.
AI Hype Meets the Wall
In Asia, Japan’s and South Korea’s markets recovered most of their earlier declines after more selling of artificial intelligence-related shares, while worries over AI valuations continued to trim gains in markets that have soared on demand for computer chips and other high-valued components used in artificial intelligence. The boom has been a feast for capital, but only for those close enough to the chip pipeline to gorge on it.
South Korea’s Kospi ended 0.2% lower at 8,394.65, narrowing a sharper decline earlier in the day after the country announced plans for investments of more than $500 billion in a computer chip manufacturing hub in the country’s southwestern region by Samsung and SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics sank 4.8%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix fell 1.7%. The state announces giant investment plans, the corporations collect the upside, and workers and communities are left to live with the industrial priorities set from above.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.2% higher at 69,468.11, reversing earlier losses. SoftBank Group, the multinational investment holding company which invests in OpenAI, sank 5.3% following a 12.5% drop on Friday. Taiwan’s Taiex, also a beneficiary of the global AI boom thanks to its many tech companies including chipmaker TSMC, gained 1% after falling 3.6% on Friday. The numbers bounce around. The power stays put.
Who Gets the Shock
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.6% to 23,026.68, while the Shanghai Composite index added 1.2% to 4,073.90. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7% to 8,823.40. India’s Sensex fell 0.5%. In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.2% to 10,487.85. Germany’s DAX edged 0.1% higher to 24,694.28. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.4% to 8,349.65.
On Friday, worries over AI rolled through Wall Street, though shares ended mixed. The S&P 500 lost less than 0.1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 0.2%. The Dow fell 0.1%. Micron Technology’s shares dropped 6.7%, Intel was down 3.4%, Nvidia fell 1.6% and AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, fell 2.1%. The market’s favorite story about endless growth hit a snag, and the losses were absorbed where they always are: by shareholders, speculators, and the workers whose lives are tied to these corporate swings without ever controlling them.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 161.90 Japanese yen from 161.71 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1399, up from $1.1385. Reuters said broad emerging-market Asia currencies were stable but muted as investors focused on domestic fundamentals, with the Malaysian ringgit rising over 0.6% to 4.063 per dollar, the Indonesian rupiah firming, the South Korean won falling about 0.6% and the Taiwanese dollar dipping about 0.2%. The language is calm. The structure underneath isn’t. War, chip speculation, and market panic keep moving through the same hierarchy, and the people with the least control keep carrying the weight.