South Korea’s Kospi opened at a record high on Monday, leading Asia-Pacific markets higher amid rising oil prices and escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.
But President Donald Trump’s rejection of Tehran’s latest offer to end the war has heightened concerns about a protracted Middle East conflict.
Iran has submitted a new proposal to U.S. negotiators focused on ending the Middle East conflict. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing sources, said the counter-proposal called for an end to the war on all fronts and the lifting of sanctions against Tehran.
However, President Trump said he did not like Iran’s response, calling it “completely unacceptable!” With real social posts.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the United States and Israel still aim to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and that the war with Iran is “not over.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comments came ahead of President Trump’s planned visit to China later this week to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The war and Iran’s subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz caused global energy costs to soar and U.S. gasoline prices to soar.
West Texas Intermediate futures for June were up 3.39% at $98.65 a barrel as of 8:06 p.m. ET. Brent crude oil futures for July rose 3.37% to $104.66 per barrel.
South Korea’s Kospi set a new record at 3.67%, while the small-cap Kosdaq rose slightly. SK Hynix, the leading stock in the index, rose 9.61%, following U.S. semiconductor stocks that soared on Friday.
Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.81% and TOPIX rose 0.32%. Nintendo’s stock price fell 6.63% as investors digested the news that the game developer would increase the price of the Switch 2 while anticipating a drop in console sales.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.71%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng Index futures stood at 26,250, below the index’s closing price of 26,393.71.
Futures, which track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 143 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures also fell 0.3% each.
Sunday’s move comes after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose more than 2% and 4%, respectively, last week. Both indexes recorded six consecutive winning weeks, each for the first time since 2024.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% for the week, marking its fifth week of gains in the past six weeks.
—CNBC’s Alex Harring and Garrett Downs contributed to this report.
