Asia Stocks Pare Gains as Brent Hits Six-Week High on Houthi Threats
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- Brent crude climbed above $93 a barrel to a six-week high after two tankers carrying Saudi crude to Asia reportedly reversed course in the Red Sea, with the retreat attributed to threats from Iran-aligned Houthi rebels to widen the Middle East conflict
- KOSPI swung from a more than 5% intraday surge to a 0.7% gain, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix tracking the reversal as the oil surge undercut the day's chip-driven rally
- Japan's Nikkei 225 ended 0.4% lower after rising nearly 2% earlier; data showed Japan's exports jumped 19.3% year-over-year in June — a tenth straight monthly gain driven by AI-related semiconductor equipment demand — yet a 25.4% surge in imports left a 406.9 billion yen trade deficit
- Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.1%, the Shanghai Composite finished largely unchanged and the blue-chip CSI 300 dropped 0.5%, while India's Nifty 50 futures slid 0.8% by midday
- Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.9% to snap a three-session slide, the NASDAQ Composite gained 1.3% and the Dow added 0.7%, with investors cautious ahead of Alphabet and Tesla earnings due after the close
- Markets are watching Alphabet's results for fresh signals on AI spending, cloud demand and corporate investment trends that could determine whether the AI-driven equity rally sustains
Why it matters: The Red Sea tanker reversals handed investors a fresh inflation impulse — Brent up 3.1% to above $93 a barrel — just as they weigh whether the AI-capex rally underpinning U.S. tech valuations is durable. Japan's 19.3% export surge confirmed AI-related semiconductor demand is real, but the 406.9 billion yen deficit underscored how oil-driven import costs are already squeezing the trade balance of a major crude importer.
