World Shares Mixed on Tech Losses      06/29 05:00

   World shares were mixed on Monday and U.S. futures advanced after stocks on 
Wall Street steadied with only modest losses last week.

   HONG KONG (AP) -- World shares were mixed on Monday and U.S. futures 
advanced after stocks on Wall Street steadied with only modest losses last week.

   Benchmarks in Japan and South Korea recovered most of their earlier declines 
in a day weighed on by more selling of artificial intelligence-related shares.

   Oil prices rose after tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalated over the 
weekend as Tehran launched fresh drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and 
Kuwait in response to new U.S. airstrikes, adding to uncertainties clouding the 
global economic outlook.

   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.

   The future for the S&P 500 surged 0.7% while that for the Dow Jones 
Industrial Average gained 0.4%.

   In Asia, 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%.

   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.

   Japan's and South Korea's markets have soared as many of their Big Tech 
firms were lifted by demand for computer chips and other high-valued components 
used in artificial intelligence. Recent worries over AI valuations have trimmed 
some of those gains.

   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%.

   On Friday, the 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%.

   In other dealings early Monday, Brent crude, the international standard, was 
up 0.9% to $73.25 a barrel. It sold for about $72 a barrel before the war 
began. Benchmark U.S. crude gained 1.2% to $70.06 a barrel.

   There's still plenty of risk facing the oil market, ING commodities 
strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a commentary Monday, as 
more questions were raised about the safety of ships in the Strait of Hormuz 
following attacks on vessels.

   Oil traders have been "too optimistic" about the timeline for a recovery in 
Persian Gulf supplies, they said.

   "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.

   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.