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A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ahn Young-joon\/AP<\/p>\n
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ahn Young-joon\/AP<\/p>\n
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ahn Young-joon\/AP<\/p>\n
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ahn Young-joon\/AP<\/p>\n
HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 Oil fell below $100 per barrel and Asian shares were sharply higher Wednesday after U.S. stocks soared to their best day in almost a year on renewed hopes that the Iran war could soon end.<\/p>\n
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South Korea\u2019s Kospi recovered its losses from earlier this week, surging 8.4% to 5,478.70, while Tokyo\u2019s Nikkei 225 rose 5.2% to 53,739.68. A survey by Japan\u2019s central bank released Wednesday showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite Iran war worries.<\/p>\n
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Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng was up 2.3% to 25,346.42, while the Shanghai Composite index was trading 1.5% higher at 3,948.55.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s S&P\/ASX 200 was up 2.2% to 8,671.80.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 4.6%, and India’s Sensex rose 2.4%.<\/p>\n
U.S. futures were 0.7% higher.<\/p>\n
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The renewed optimism over a possible de-escalation of the Iran war, which is in its fifth week, came after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the United States will be done attacking Iran probably in two to three weeks, and that the U.S. \u201cwill not have anything to do with\u201d what happens next in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
The White House said Trump will deliver a public address Wednesday evening on the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s remarks came after he told U.S. allies to \u201cgo get your own oil\u201d and blamed them for refusing to be more involved in its war effort. Significant maritime traffic disruption at the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly a fifth of the world\u2019s oil typically passes through, has sent energy prices surging and is fueling global inflation.<\/p>\n
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Oil prices were down sharply. Brent crude, the international standard, was down 4.4% at $99.44 Wednesday. Benchmark U.S. crude dropped 3.8% to $97.55.<\/p>\n
As the Iran war rattles global energy markets, on Tuesday, U.S. gas prices surged past an average of $4 a gallon, the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cDe-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,\u201d wrote Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics in a research note Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end \u2018very soon,’\u201d he wrote. \u201cDo markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Wall Street advanced on Tuesday. The S&P 500 jumped 2.9% for its largest gain since May to 6,528.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 2.5% to 46,341.51, and the Nasdaq composite leaped 3.8% to 21,590.63.<\/p>\n
Shares of U.S. semiconductor company Marvell Technology spiked 12.8%, after Nvidia said it was investing $2 billion in the company. Nvidia jumped 5.6%.<\/p>\n
Centessa Pharmaceuticals leaped 44%, following U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly’s announcement that it was acquiring the company that’s developing a new class of medicines that could treat excessive daytime sleepiness.<\/p>\n
McCormick, the spice and flavorings company, fell 6.1% after confirmation that it was combing with Unilever\u2019s food business.<\/p>\n
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In other dealings, gold prices rose 1.6% to $4,751.80 per ounce. The U.S. dollar was trading at 158.36 Japanese yen, down from 158.72 yen. The euro was at $1.1584, up from $1.1553.<\/p>\n
AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[145,43643,31231,23681,59373,84874,59371,84875,59372,88248,61262,82,84,83,88247,88901],"class_list":["post-229915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-donald-trump","tag-eli-lilly","tag-iran","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32003-ap-online-stock-market-reports","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-stock-markets-war-oil-trump-iran","tag-thomas-mathews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}