BANGKOK – Shares skidded Friday in Asia after Brent crude shot to its highest price since May as heavy fighting in the Middle East again threatened to slow the global flow of oil and gas.
U.S. futures were little changed after tumbles for two of Wall Street’s most influential companies, Alphabet and Tesla, yanked U.S. stocks to their worst loss in a month.
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Looming over markets: The deepening crisis in the Middle East, worries over the a potential bubble in investments in artificial intelligence and another round of tariff hikes by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The U.S. is imposing taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners, accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, saying they failed to fully enforce bans on goods produced by forced labor, the Trump administration said Thursday.
That move came just as the clock was running out Friday on stopgap levies the president imposed after a stinging defeat for other such tariffs at the Supreme Court.
Such uncertainties have helped push the U.S. dollar to a 40-year high against the Japanese yen. A dollar bought 163.79 yen early Friday, down from 163.85 yen and a level last seen in 1986. The euro rose to $1.1387 from $1.1377.
South Korea's Kospi stuttered lower, falling 5.7% to $6,690.62. Samsung Electronics sank7.6% and shares in computer chipmaker SK Hynix dropped 8.3%.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 declined 2.7% to 64,611.15, led by losses for technology companies. SoftBank Group, which has massive investments in artificial intelligence, tumbled 7.4%.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.4% to 24,861.44, while the Shanghai Composite index shed 1.4% to 3,822.13.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.8% to 8,772.30.
On Thursday, the price of Brent crude shot to as high as $102 per barrel and settled at $100.69 per barrel, up 7%. Early Friday in Asia, it was down 0.8% at $99.87 per barrel. Before the Iran war began in late February it was trading around $72 per barrel.
U.S. benchmark crude slipped 1.1% to $91.23 per barrel.
The cause for the latest spike in prices: attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. That threatens another avenue that oil companies use to move their crude from the Middle East to customers worldwide, along with the Strait of Hormuz.
Underscoring the importance of the sea route for the economy, Trump threatened “major military punishment” against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are backed by Iran, if they keep attacking ships.
U.S. stocks fell under the pressure of rising oil prices, which raise costs for businesses and cut into their customers’ ability to spend.
The S&P 500 fell 1.2% and is on track for its first back-to-back weekly loss since March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 506 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.2%.
Higher inflation could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates, which would slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and other investments.
The European Central Bank held its main interest rates steady at its meeting Thursday.
Gasoline prices tend to follow oil prices higher, and a gallon of regular costs an average of $4.09 across the United States, according to AAA. That is still below highs of roughly $4.56 in May, but it was at just $3.93 a month ago.
Tesla tumbled 14.5% after Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Because Tesla one of the largest stocks in the S&P 500 by market value, its stock has more influence on the index than nearly every other.
One of the few that is larger is Alphabet. Its stock fell 7.1% even though the parent company of Google delivered stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected.
Investors focused instead on how much Alphabet is planning to spend on AI after the company raised its forecast for capital spending.
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Associated Press Business Writers Matt Ott in Washington and Stan Choe in New York contributed to this report.