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HONG KONG (AP) — World shares retreated Friday and South Korea’s Kospi index gave up gains after reaching an all-time high, as investors watch for developments from the Iran war and as U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up his summit in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
U.S. futures were down after Wall Street reached fresh records.
In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 traded 1.2% lower at 24,092.41. France’s CAC 40 also fell 1.2% to 7,987.27, while Germany’s DAX dropped 1.5% to 24,092.41.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 2% to 61,409.29 after rising briefly earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 6.1% to 7,493.18 on investors’ profit-taking, after crossing the 8,000 mark for the first time and reaching 8,046.78, in part powered by excitement around the artificial intelligence boom.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.6% to 25,962.73, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 1% to 4,135.39.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1% to 8,630.80.
Taiwan’s Taiex was 1.4% lower while India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
Trump wrapped up his China visit on Friday after a series of meetings with Xi that touched on issues including U.S.-China trade, further economic cooperation and Taiwan. Investors are monitoring trade deal updates on areas such as American soybeans, beef and airplanes as Xi warned Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to clashes and conflict.
While there is some optimism over U.S.-China relations, some analysts suggest any deals should be looked at with a sense of caution.
They recalled how a number of the promised projects and investments that came out of U.S.-China deals from Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materializing, as tensions between Washington and Beijing rose in the following years.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of skepticism,” wrote Leah Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
Trump also said in an interview that China could buy U.S. oil, more than a year after China effectively stopped buying crude oil from the United States following Trump’s imposition of hefty trade tariffs last year. Trump said Xi told him China “would like to be of help” in brokering an end to the Iran war.
Oil prices climbed more than 3% early Friday, as U.S.-Iran talks on permanently ending the Iran war stalled, and after a ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates was seized and another cargo ship near Oman was attacked.
Brent crude, the international standard, was 3.2% higher at $109.11 per barrel. It was trading at around $70 a barrel before the war in Iran started in late February.
