HONG KONG (AP) — World shares fell and U.S. futures also declined Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections.
Oil prices climbed after the United States conducted defensive strikes on some Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz.
The outcome of Tuesday’s vote could fundamentally reshape U.S. President Donald Trump’s final two years in the White House. Republicans and Democrats are battling for control of Congress and key governors’ offices at a time of widespread disaffection over high prices.
In early European trading, the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.4% to 8,007.84, Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 0.3% to 10,726.55, and Germany’s DAX declined 0.9% to 25,760.67.
The future for the S&P 500 was down 0.3% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%.
In Asia, South Korea’s benchmark Kospi fell 4% to 5,626.08. Memory chipmaker SK Hynix dropped 5.7% and Samsung Electronics declined 4%, giving up Monday’s gains.
Markets in Tokyo were closed for a holiday.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng added 0.6% to 23,525.97.
The Shanghai Composite index retreated 0.8% to 3,608.10, near its lowest level in more than a year. Gains from market-supporting measures announced Monday were short-lived.
Shares of big banks were mostly lower after the Chinese central bank announced that it was raising the foreign exchange reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions to 6% from 4%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% to 8,880.50. The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 4.85%, the highest the cash rate has been since it stood at 5.25% in December 2008.
It was the fifth rate hike this year.
Taiwan’s Taiex slid 3.8%. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. sank 1.9% and chip designer Mediatek plunged 7.6%.
India’s Sensex climbed 1.3%.
On Monday, the S&P 500 sank 0.5%, erasing a 1.1% gain earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, while the Nasdaq composite fell 1.1%.
The mixed performance for indexes came even though the majority of stocks within the S&P 500 climbed. They benefited from a recent 7.6% drop in the price of a barrel of Brent crude, which closed at $104.77. It’s the latest yo-yo move for oil prices on uncertainty about when the war with Iran will end.
So have stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry, which have been shaky for months amid criticism that they have surged too high and are in a bubble. Worries are growing that all the hundreds of billions of dollars Big Tech companies are pouring into AI data centers won’t yield enough productivity and profit to make the investments worth it.
The latest profit reports from Alphabet and other Big Tech companies also showed how AI may be dragging on their own businesses. Google’s parent company burned through more cash during the latest quarter, as measured by something called free cash flow, and it reported slower-than-expected growth in its search business.
Expectations are high for all kinds of companies to continue to deliver big gains in profits as the U.S. economy keeps chugging along, even with high inflation and interest rates. That helped send the S&P 500 to its record last month.
In other dealings Tuesday, the price of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.7% to $106.58 a barrel. U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 1.5% to $97.88 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar fell to 157.86 Japanese yen from 157.95 yen. The euro rose to $1.1202 from $1.1188. ___
Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.
By ELAINE LAI
Associated Press
