Shares were mixed in Asia and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index hit a fresh record Monday after U.S. stocks ended last week with new highs.
The price of Brent crude jumped $2 as talks on ending the war with Iran hit more snags. The White House canceled plans to send envoys to Pakistan for more negotiations and U.S. President Donald Trump cited a lack of progress.
“If they want, we can talk but we’re not sending people,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. He said earlier on social media: “All they have to do is call!!!”
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, to be delivered in July, rose $2 to $101.13. U.S. benchmark crude oil added $1.84 to $96.24.
This week will bring decisions on interest rates by top central banks, including the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 surged 1.4% to 60,481.21, touching a new intraday high of 60,903.95. The Kospi in South Korea jumped 2% to 6,606.81.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shed 0.3% to 25,892.48 and the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.1% at 4,080.65.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.3% to 8,761.30.
Taiwan's Taiex rallied 1.8%, helped by a revival of buying of tech shares driven by the boom in artificial intelligence. India's Sensex added 0.4%.
On Friday, the S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and topped its prior all-time high, which was set on Wednesday. It closed at 7,165.08.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.2% to 49,230.71, while the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.6% to its own record thanks to strong gains for the tech sector, closing at 24,836.60.
A survey by the University of Michigan found consumer sentiment soured in April across political party, income, age, and education, though it improved a bit after the ceasefire in the war with Iran was announced earlier in the month.
The S&P 500 has leaped nearly 13% in a little under a month. Hopes have also built in financial markets that the United States and Iran can find a way to avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy because of their war.
A tenuous ceasefire remains, but tensions between the U.S. and Iran are keeping oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.
In Wall Street trading Friday, Intel roared past its peak in 2000 during the dot-com boom to an all-time high. It soared 23.6% for its best day since 1987 after reporting much stronger results for the first three months of the year than analysts expected. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the next wave of artificial-intelligence technology is increasing the need for Intel’s chips and products, and the company’s forecast for profit in the spring topped analysts’ estimates.
In other dealings early Monday, the dollar fell to 159.46 Japanese yen from 159.59. The euro climbed to $1.1721 from $1.1701.
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