Oil prices surge amid Israel-Iran escalation, tech stocks dive

Oil prices surged Monday after Iran and Israel resumed strikes against one another despite a purported ceasefire, while technology stocks slumped following heavy pre-weekend losses on Wall Street.

Brent crude, the international standard, was up $1.12 to $94.21 a barrel at 8 a.m. Eastern after jumping $4.60 a barrel overnight. Benchmark US crude rose $1 to $91.54 a barrel.

Iran moved to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world’s oil flows, after US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28, sending ripples across the global economy and sending energy prices soaring.

In Asia, Seoul’s Kospi index dived more than eight percent to lead a rout across the region after Friday’s strong US jobs data fueled bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate hike, hammering the technology industry.

The chipmaker Samsung dived more than 10%, and its rival SK hynix shed 7.7%.

Wall Street had tumbled on Friday, led by a 4% drop for the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

Tokyo’s stock market lost almost 4% on Monday, and Hong Kong closed down 1.2%.

“Rising borrowing costs reduce the present value of future earnings and can also weigh on investment spending,” noted Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at trading group Swissquote.

“Both tend to hurt technology stocks more than other sectors because a larger share of their valuation depends on future growth,” she said.

She added that “the bloodbath across tech is not only due to strong jobs data,” noting “that investors who rode the chip wave would be tempted to take their profits and free up cash to jump on the SpaceX IPO” this week.

The rockets-to-AI behemoth led by Elon Musk aims to raise $75 billion in the biggest initial public offering ever, as the world’s richest person pursues data centers in space and a trip to Mars.

Europe fared better, with Paris and Frankfurt losing about 0.5% in midday deals and London edging higher.

Elsewhere, bitcoin hovered around $63,000 after sinking below $60,000 on Friday to its lowest level since October 2024.

Following Donald Trump’s presidential election win in November of that year, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency had soared to record highs thanks to his vocal support for the sector.

Iran on Sunday night fired missiles at Israel for the first time since reaching a truce with the US and Israel on April 8. The strikes came in response to the IDF’s targeting of Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut after the terror group fired rockets at Israel.

Iran and its Houthi proxy in Yemen launched further attacks on Israel on Monday morning, while Israel carried out strikes on Iranian military and energy infrastructure.