Wednesday, May 13, 2026
LIVE 7hrs ago
On May 6, 2026, employees of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, pose for a picture to commemorate the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) reaching over 7,000 points.
TOKYO — On Wednesday, most global shares went up and oil prices went down as hopes grew for an end to the war with Iran.
The CAC 40 in France went up 1.6% to 8,192.68, and the DAX in Germany went up 1.5% to 24,767.57. The FTSE 100 in Britain rose 1.9% to 10,408.98. Futures in the U.S. rose by 0.6%.
The news that Iranian officials were going to China before a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping made people feel better about the market.
Trump said he was stopping the U.S. from helping ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz get out so that there would be room to finish a deal with Iran to end the conflict. The American military still has Iranian ports blocked off.
The Kospi in South Korea rose 6.5% to 7,384.56 in Asian trading, breaking the 7,000 mark for the first time. Samsung Electronics' shares was up 14% in a surge fueled by hopes for substantial growth in AI.
Shares of SK Hynix, another big Korean maker of computer chips, went up over 11%. Samsung and SK Hynix are two of the biggest makers of the memory chips that AI needs to work.
There was a holiday in Tokyo, therefore business was closed.
The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia went up 1.3% to 8,793.60. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong surged 1.2% to 26,213.78, and the Shanghai Composite index rose 1.2% to 4,160.17.
The price of benchmark U.S. crude oil fell $3.55 to $98.72 a barrel in energy trade. Brent crude, the worldwide standard, fell $3.43 to $106.44 a barrel, continuing a trend that had reversed significant gains earlier in the week. Prices are still far higher than they were before the war with Iran, when they were about $70.
According to U.S. military leaders, a truce with Iran is in place, but there are still certain things that are not obvious. The U.S. Navy is seeking to clear a way in the Strait of Hormuz so that oil ships may start shipping oil from the Persian Gulf again.
The U.S. dollar fell slightly from 157.89 yen to 156.18 yen in currency trade. The euro was worth $1.1752, which is more than $1.1693.
