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Global Shares Mostly Decline Monday 09/14 05:13
Global shares were mostly lower Monday as AI-related stocks, including Open
AI investor SoftBank, declined following calls from Anthropic's CEO to slow AI
development for safety.
HONG KONG (AP) -- Global shares were mostly lower Monday as AI-related
stocks, including Open AI investor SoftBank, declined following calls from
Anthropic's CEO to slow AI development for safety.
U.S. futures edged lower, while oil prices gained more than 2% as worries
grew over global oil supplies after Saudi Arabia shut down a major oil pipeline
used to help bypass the Strait of Hormuz after it was attacked.
In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.6% to 10,717.84.
France's CAC 40 dropped 0.8% to 8,118.52, while Germany's DAX was 0.6% lower at
25,405.91.
South Korea's Kospi lost 3.3% to 6,684.37. Japan's Nikkei 225 index slid
0.8% to 63,492.99. Shares of Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank Group, a
key investor in OpenAI, plummeted 10.7% after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed
Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei in his calls over the weekend that the AI industry
should slow down to ensure its safety.
Altman also said in an interview with Fortune published Saturday that his AI
firm would not make its initial public stock offering this year as it focuses
on safety.
OpenAI and Anthropic are private companies, but both are expected to list
and be traded publicly in the months ahead.
SoftBank's share price slide "probably reflects the possibility that AI
development may be slowed by regulators to try to avoid the worst case outcomes
that Anthropic and Open AI have discussed," said Dan Baker of investment
research firm Morningstar. "And maybe also reflect the possibility that any
further examples of loss of control of newer AI models could also slow AI
development."
Other AI-related stocks also fell on Monday. South Korea's memory chipmaker
SK Hynix fell 6.4%. Samsung Electronics lost 4.1%. Japan's chip equipment
manufacturer Tokyo Electron dropped 1%, while Japanese memory maker Kioxia
Holdings also sank 6.4%.
Taiwan's Taiex fell 0.7%. Shares of Taiwan's leading AI chipmaker Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. dropped 1.2%.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.5% to 24,917.60. The Shanghai Composite index
edged down less than 0.1% to 3,885.33. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was up
0.1% to 8,749.90.
Oil prices moved higher early Monday as U.S.-Iran tensions remained
escalated while Iran-backed Houthi rebels stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.6% to $107.28 per barrel. It
was at roughly $72 a barrel before the start of the war in Iran in late
February.
Benchmark U.S. crude was up 2.5% to $102.57 per barrel.
While the prospect of a de-escalation of war in Iran and the reopening of
the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil transport, may have
dimmed, wrote ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey in a
commentary Monday, the situation is still fluid and "sizeable" volumes of oil
have still been moving through the strait.
On Friday, Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.9%, ending its four-day
losing streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1%, and the
technology-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 1%.
Investors are also monitoring this week's Federal Reserve meeting, in which
Fed policymakers could raise rates as inflation remains above the Fed's 2%
target.
Growing inflationary worries following the Iran war-caused energy shock and
rising U.S. government debt have fueled a sell-off of government bonds and put
pressure on U.S. Treasury yields.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury was at 4.96%, up from 4.95% last
Thursday despite the U.S. Treasury Department's expanded buyback operations
meant to stabilize the bond market.
In other dealings, the U.S. dollar rose to 154.56 Japanese yen from 153.58
yen. The euro was trading at $1.1542, down from $1.1598.
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