HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 Asian stocks were mostly up Friday tracking Wall Street gains while oil prices also rose on the fragile Iran war ceasefire and ahead of Iran-U.S. ceasefire talks in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s Kospi jumped 1.8% to 5,879.71. Tokyo\u2019s Nikkei 225 was up 1.6% to 56,789.58. Shares of Fast Retailing, parent of Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, surged more than 10% after the group raised profit expectations for the year.<\/p>\n
Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng gained 0.7% to 25,919.12, while the Shanghai Composite index was 0.6% higher at 3,991.14. China on Friday reported that its consumer price index \u2013 a main inflation gauge \u2013 was up 1% in March compared with a year ago, lower than what analysts had expected and down from the 1.3% increase in February.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s S&P\/ASX 200 lost 0.4%. Taiwan\u2019s Taiex rose 1.3%, while India\u2019s Sensex gained 0.7%.<\/p>\n
Talks between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad for a possible permanent ceasefire agreement in the Iran war are expected to take place starting Saturday, with U.S. Vice President JD Vance leading the delegation for the United States.<\/p>\n
But ahead of the talks, deadly Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday raised questions whether the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war is still intact, while the Islamic Republic maintained control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is largely closed despite demands from the U.S. to reopen the waterway critical for global oil and gas transport.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had authorized talks with Lebanon, with negotiations said to be expected in Washington next week.<\/p>\n
Oil was up modestly on Friday. Brent crude, the international standard, was 0.5% higher at $96.42 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude was up 0.4% to $98.28 a barrel.<\/p>\n
For oil prices, \u201c$65-70 a barrel is not coming back,\u201d Ajay Rajadhyaksha of Barclays wrote in a recent research note, referring to the pre-Iran war oil price levels. The bank predicts that Brent crude could remain at around $85 per barrel on average for this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cA ceasefire is not a refund,\u201d he wrote. \u201cCeasefires end wars; they don\u2019t undo them.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Wall Street gained on hopes of the Iran war ceasefire. The S&P 500 added 0.6% to 6,824.66. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6% to 48,185.80, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.8% to 22,822.42.<\/p>\n
Shares of Constellation Brands, which sells Modelo and Corona beers in the U.S., jumped 8.5% following better-than-expected quarterly results. Cloud services provider CoreWeave was 3.5% higher after announcing an expanded deal with Meta Platforms through 2032. Meta was up 2.6%.<\/p>\n
In other dealings, gold and silver prices fell. Gold\u2019s price lost 0.5% to $4,791.90 an ounce, while silver prices dropped 0.6% to $76.02 per ounce.<\/p>\n
The U.S. dollar rose to 159.18 Japanese yen from 158.96 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1694, down from $1.1699.<\/p>\n
AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 Asian stocks were mostly up Friday tracking Wall Street gains while oil prices also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92968,73772,31231,86650,23681,59373,30482,84874,59371,84875,59372,88248,61262,82,84,83,92967],"class_list":{"0":"post-243196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-ajay-rajadhyaksha","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-islamabad","12":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","13":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","14":"tag-pakistan","15":"tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","16":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","17":"tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","18":"tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","19":"tag-product-32003-ap-online-stock-market-reports","20":"tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","21":"tag-san-antonio","22":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","23":"tag-san-antonio-news","24":"tag-stock-markets-trump-iran-ceasefire-oil"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243196","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=243196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}