Oil rose more than 4% and Asian stocks fell after U.S. President Donald Trump said in his first national address since the Iran war began that the U.S. will continue to hit Iran very hard.
Trump also said in his Wednesday night speech that the United States will “finish the job” in Iran soon as “core strategic objectives are nearing completion” and military operations could wrap up soon.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” Trump said in his address.
Trump did not mention a looming deadline he set for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway for global oil and gas transport, after he threatened Iran earlier with U.S. attacks on its energy infrastructure if the strait was not reopened. He did not offer a clear path to end the supply disruptions that have sent energy prices soaring.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.9% to 52,731.94 in early Asia trading on Thursday. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.6% to 5,281.22.
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Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.9% to 25,056.42, the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.5% to 3,928.30.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.6%, while Taiwan’s Taiex was trading 1.1% lower.
U.S. futures were down more than 0.9%.
Oil prices were sharply higher following Trump’s remarks. Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 4.9% to $106.16 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 4% to $104.15 a barrel.
“The market has shown disappointment because the speech President Trump made was far less than what the market expected,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex in Tokyo. “There were no concrete details about the end of the hostilities with Iran.”
“What the market wants is a clear outline for the ceasefire,” he said.
Gold and silver prices fell. Gold’s price was down 2% to $4,718.70 per ounce, and silver lost 4.9% to $72.39 an ounce.
Renewed optimism on Wednesday for a possible end to the Iran war pushed world stocks higher, after Trump said late Tuesday the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 added 0.7% to 6,575.32. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 46,565.74, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.2% to 21,840.95.
Shares of Eli Lilly jumped 3.8% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its GLP-1 pill for weight loss. Nike plunged 15.5% despite better-than-estimated quarterly profit on expectations of weaker sales.
In other dealings early Thursday, the U.S. dollar rose to 159.37 Japanese yen from 158.82 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1545, down from $1.1589.
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Associated Press journalists Stan Choe, Matthew Daly and Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.
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