South Korean benchmarks tumbled Monday, leading wider declines in the region. The Kospi index fell more than 4%, while the Kospi 200 futures dropped as much as 5%, prompting authorities to temporarily halt trading, according to an official note. Index heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics were down 6.66% and 5.55%, respectively. The small-cap Kosdaq lost 4.45%. Asia-Pacific markets fell Monday as investors assessed private data for China’s factory activity in January, while gold extended losses from Friday. China’s factory activity gathered speed in January, according to a private survey released Monday, as manufacturers accelerated production and loaded cargoes ahead of the extended Lunar New Year holiday.
Stocks retreated on Friday as technology shares remained in a funk, even as investors largely approved of President Donald Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve. Still, the S&P 500 squeaked out a January gain, despite Friday’s losses and volatile trading this month. The broad index fell 0.43% to finish at 6,939.03, its third straight down day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back 179 points, or 0.36%, to settle at 48,892.47. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite underperformed, dropping 0.94%, to end the day at 23,461.82. All three indexes fell more than 1% at session lows.
Gold and silver extended their sell-off Monday, deepening losses from last Friday’s rout as a firmer dollar and profit-taking drains momentum from a rally that had propelled the precious metals to record highs just days earlier. Spot gold lost around 5% to $4,611.4 per ounce, having crashed nearly 10% on Friday, when prices plunged below $5,000 an ounce. Silver, which had surged alongside gold on safe haven demand and speculative inflows, also remained under pressure after last Friday’s 30% nosedive that saw the metal log its worst day since March 1980. Spot prices of the white metal were down more than 10% at $76.1138 per ounce as of 11.03 p.m. ET Wednesday. The dollar index, which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, has strengthened about 0.8% since Thursday.
President Trump said on Saturday that Iran was “seriously talking” with the US, shortly after Iran indicated that arrangements for talks were progressing. This marked a shift from last month’s heightened tensions, when Trump repeatedly threatened military action over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests, while Tehran also warned of retaliation. Those exchanges had helped drive oil prices sharply higher in January on fears of supply disruptions in the region. Adding to signs of de-escalation, reports suggested that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ naval forces have no plans to conduct live-fire exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil route.
China’s factory activity gathered speed in January, according to a private survey released Monday, as manufacturers accelerated production and front-loaded cargoes ahead of the extended Lunar New Year holiday. The seasonally-adjusted RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI, conducted by S&P Global, rose to 50.3 in January from 50.1 the previous month, in line with analysts’ expectations of 50.3 in a Reuters poll. A reading above the 50 benchmark indicates an expansion, while one below that suggests contraction. That marked the strongest level since October, when the private-surveyed PMI came in at 50.6. Production accelerated last month as new orders picked up both at home and abroad, prompting firms to hire additional staff to cope with rising workloads and clear outstanding orders.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said he believes he has the votes to end the partial government shutdown by Tuesday, with the House set to take up a Senate-approved spending package this week. “Let’s say I’m confident that we’ll do it at least by Tuesday,” the Louisiana Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The U.S. government partially shut down on Saturday morning after Congress failed to approve a spending package and send it to President Donald Trump by the Jan. 30 deadline. Senate Democrats demanded changes to the package that the House originally passed after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota. Democrats ultimately had the Department of Homeland Security funding stripped from the package and replaced with two-week stopgap funding for the agency. Now, the amended package has to be reapproved by the House.
India’s government plans a modest improvement in its fiscal picture in the coming financial year, with reductions in the fiscal deficit and debt, while boosting manufacturing in sectors ranging from textiles to chips. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her ninth consecutive budget speech, said on Sunday that the government sees its fiscal deficit falling to 4.3% of GDP in the 2026-27 financial year, down from 4.4% in 2025-26. Sitharaman said the government expects India’s debt-to-GDP ratio to fall to 55.6% in the coming financial year from 56.1% in 2025-26. The finance minister pointed to the wider uncertainties facing India. The government plans to encourage manufacturing in seven key sectors, including semiconductors, rare-earth magnets, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, capital goods, textiles and sports goods.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said India will buy Venezuelan oil, helping to replace some of the Russian oil that the world’s third-biggest oil importer buys. “We’ve already made that deal, the concept of the deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he travelled to his vacation home in Florida from Washington. Reuters reported on Friday that the United States has told Delhi it could soon resume purchases of Venezuelan oil to help replace imports of Russian oil, citing three people familiar with the matter. India stopped buying oil from Caracas last year after Trump in March imposed a 25% tariff on countries buying Venezuelan oil.
Pharma giant AstraZeneca will list on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, days after it announced big commitments on the other side of the world. Like the rest of Big Pharma, the company has a balancing act. It wants a close relationship with the U.S., its biggest market, and the listing is intended to boost investment there. Meanwhile, innovation-friendly China is attracting pharma companies that urgently need to develop new medicines to replace blockbuster drugs whose patents are set to expire in the next few years. Pricing challenges in the U.S. add to the pressure. AstraZeneca has announced it’s investing billions in China and partnering with a Chinese biotech on weight-loss drugs, just before its shares list in the U.S on Monday.
Ford has held talks with electric-vehicle maker Xiaomi about forming a joint venture to manufacture EVs in the U.S., the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. A Ford spokesperson denied the FT report, calling it "completely false" in an X post. A Xiaomi spokesperson also dismissed the report. "Xiaomi does not sell its products and services in the United States and is not negotiating to do so," said the Xiaomi spokesperson. Some major U.S. automakers and lawmakers are concerned about Chinese government-backed automakers and battery manufacturers gaining entry to the United States to open manufacturing plants, arguing the industry’s future is at stake.
Nvidia plans to make a "huge" investment into OpenAI, probably its largest ever, CEO Jensen Huang said on Saturday, denying he was unhappy with the ChatGPT maker. The chipmaker in September announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, a deal that would give OpenAI the cash and access it needs to buy advanced chips that are key to maintaining its dominance in an increasingly competitive landscape The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the plan had stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal. The report said Huang had privately underlined to industry associates in recent months that the original $100 billion agreement was non-binding and not finalised. Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Huang said it was "nonsense" to say he was unhappy with OpenAI.
Oracle expects to raise $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026 to build additional capacity for its cloud infrastructure, the software company said on Sunday. The company, chaired by billionaire Larry Ellison, said it plans to achieve its funding objectives using a combination of debt and equity financing. "Oracle is raising money in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others", the company said in a statement. Oracle plans to raise around half of the funding through a combination of equity-linked and common equity issuances, including mandatory convertible preferred securities and a new at-the-market equity program of up to $20 billion. The software group plans to raise the other half of its funding by issuing senior unsecured bonds early in 2026.