Asian Shares Fall as South Korea's Kospi Drops 6.6 Percent

Asian shares were mostly lower Thursday and oil prices slipped despite a series of strikes between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. futures edged higher. Selling of AI-related shares weighed on benchmarks in South Korea and Japan. An interest rate hike by the Bank of Korea also contributed to a 6.6 percent tumble for the Kospi, to 6,816.70.

Memory chipmaker SK Hynix dropped 11.2 percent, while Samsung Electronics fell 8.2 percent. Taiwan's Taiex lost 0.3 percent ahead of the release of an earnings report by Taiwan computer chipmaker TSMC.

225 fell 2.9 percent to 66,767.64.

Shares of Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia plummeted 13.5 percent. Chipmaking equipment company Tokyo Electron dropped 5.2 percent, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest gave up 5.6 percent. SoftBank Group shed 6.4 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was a regional outlier, gaining 1.7 percent to 25,111.22.

Alibaba's Hong Kong-traded shares climbed 4.4 percent, after China's cyberspace regulator said Wednesday it had approved the Apple Intelligence AI tool for use in China. An Alibaba spokesperson said its Qwen model will be integrated into Apple Intelligence.

The Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.9 percent to 3,921.20. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2 percent lower, to 8,820.50. India's Sensex climbed 0.3 percent.

Oil prices were lower early Thursday but were still at elevated levels as the U.S. intensified its strikes against Iran, while Iran targeted missile and drone fire on Kuwait and Bahrain. Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 0.4 percent to $84.55 a barrel.

It was around $72 per barrel in late February before the war began. Benchmark U.S. crude was down 0.2 percent at $79.34 per barrel. Rising U.S.-Iran tensions are having a meaningful impact on vessel flows from the Persian Gulf, ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary Thursday.