South Korea’s Kospi drops nearly 5% as some AI stocks swoon, while oil keeps climbing
Jul 19, 2026, 9:35 PM | Updated: Jul 20, 2026, 5:36 am
The screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) is placed at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Credit: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher on Monday but South Korea’s Kospi fell nearly 5% as investors unloaded more stocks linked to artificial intelligence.
Japan’s markets were closed Monday for a holiday and U.S. futures were mixed.
Oil prices jumped more than 2%, with Brent crude above $90 a barrel as the U.S. and Iran moved closer to resuming an all-out war. Early Monday, the U.S. announced more attacks for a ninth straight night. Iran has been responding to U.S. strikes by hitting U.S.-allies across the Middle East.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.6% to $90.40 per barrel and benchmark U.S. crude climbed 2.2% to $83.58 per barrel.
“The U.S. and Iran continue to exchange strikes, which are proving to be deadly for both sides,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary Monday. “If this escalation goes unchecked, we could return to an environment of wide-scale attacks across the Persian Gulf.”
Tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil transport, have nearly ground to a halt, adding to pressures on supplies, they noted.
In Asian share trading the Kospi, which has benefited substantially from the global AI frenzy, sank 4.9% to 6,490.97. Two of its most valuable stocks booked losses. Samsung Electronics lost 4.4%, while memory chip maker SK Hynix fell 3.3%.
Taiwan’s Taiex, also heavy in AI-related stocks, edged less than 0.1% lower as its leading chipmaker, TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., climbed 2%. It had fallen 7.3% on Friday after the company announced it plans to spend an additional $100 billion to expand its chipmaking capacity in the U.S.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 2.1% to 25,105.78, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 1.2% to 3,808.39.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2% higher to 8,815.30.
India’s Sensex slipped 0.9%.
AI-related shares including chipmaking stocks declined on Friday, pulling world markets lower. Pledges of huge spending on AI are fueling worries the sector may be in a bubble, and many investors have opted to sell to lock in profits from recent big gains.
Markets were also shaken by the rollout of another powerful Chinese AI model, this time by Beijing-based Moonshot AI.
The impact of the new Kimi K3 open-source AI model was similar to when China’s “ DeepSeek moment” rattled world markets in early 2025. It was viewed as another sign of how lower-cost, capable Chinese AI models are increasingly challenging rivals like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT.
On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 ended the week down 1% at 7,457.69. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8% to 52,146.42, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 1.4% to 25,520.24.
Chipmaking stocks took a hit, with Nvidia falling 2.2%, while Broadcom and AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, fell 1%.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, dropped 5.4% after dropping below its initial public offering price of $135 a share, reaching its lowest point since its stock began public trading on the Nasdaq last month.
In other dealings, the U.S. dollar fell to 162.37 Japanese yen from 162.43 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1446, up from $1.1438.
