NewzBANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares skidded Thursday following a retreat on Wall Street as the price of crude oil again traded above $100 a barrel. The price of Brent crude jumped 3.4% on Wednesday, surging above $100 a barrel for the first time since July. It fell back slightly early Thursday to about $101 a barrel.
The latest attacks between the U.S. and Iran are stifling the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that oil prices likely won’t fall until after U.S.
In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.8% to 64,597.46 and the Kospi in South Korea declined 0.9% to 6,989.06. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.4% to 24,932.95, while the Shanghai Composite index gave up 0.3% to 3,939.43. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 1.5% to 8,774.50.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 index fell 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite gave up 0.6%. The indexes are all on track for a weekly loss.
Oil prices drove much of the action on Wall Street. destroyed five Iranian tankers on Tuesday in a series of attacks between the two nations. The conflict that began in February has essentially shut down traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed before the war began.
Retailers were among the companies that pulled the market lower. Amazon fell 1.8%, Starbucks lost 1.9% and Home Depot dropped 1%. Every sector within the benchmark S&P 500 declined except for energy, which rose as oil companies notched gains.
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