A currency dealer monitors exchange rates in front of a large screen displaying the Korean benchmark stock index (C) and the Korean won/US dollar exchange rate (R) in the foreign exchange dealing room of Hana Bank’s main branch in Seoul, April 9, 2025.
Jung Young Jae | AFP | Getty Images
South Korea’s Kospi opened more than 5% higher on Tuesday, leading the region’s rally after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested the conflict with Iran could be nearing an end, sending oil prices lower and Wall Street rallying.
The small-cap Kosdaq rose more than 4%.
australian S&P/ASX 200 The stock rose 1.35% in early trading.
Japanese Nikkei Stock Average rose 1.66%, and TOPIX rose 1.3%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng Index The index’s last close was 25,408.46, while the futures price was 25,370.
Oil prices fell after President Trump said he was considering seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important barrier for oil markets. President Trump also told a CBS News reporter who shared comments on a post about X that “the war is almost completely over.”
As of 7:28 p.m. ET Monday, U.S. crude oil was down 6.49% to $88.66 per barrel. The decline came after oil prices soared above $100.
Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, said of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, “20% of the world’s oil supply has been cut off, making it the largest oil supply outage in history.”
The biggest disruption before the current war was during the Suez crisis in 1956, when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the energy consulting firm told clients in a note on Sunday. At the time, about 10% of the world’s oil supply was disrupted.
US stocks rose overnight. The S&P 500 rose 0.83% to close at 6,795.99, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 239.25 points, or 0.5%, to close at 47,740.80. The blue-chip stock index suffered its biggest weekly decline in about a year. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.38% to settle at 22,695.95.
These moves represent an impressive recovery from the losses seen earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 900 points at its trading low, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each fell as much as 1.5%.
