Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Thursday as investors assessed the Bank of Korea’s latest policy decision. South Korea’s central bank held its benchmark interest rate at 2.50%, in line with Reuters’ expectations, as the recent slide in the won has narrowed room for policy easing. The country’s benchmark Kospi rose 0.57%, while the small-cap Kosdaq traded flat. The South Korean won weakened around 0.2% to 1,466.6 against the dollar.The Nikkei 225 declined 1.05% while the Topix added 0.15%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.46%. Shares of Toyota Industries jumped 5.8% after Toyota Motors said late Wednesday it had agreed to increase its bid for Toyota Industries to 18,800 yen ($118.11) a share.
Stocks fell on Wednesday for a second session, pulling back further from record levels, as traders digested a fresh batch of earnings and monitored geopolitical developments. The S&P 500 dropped 0.53% and closed at 6,926.60. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 42.36 points, or 0.09%, and ended at 49,149.63. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1%, settling at 23,471.75. It was the second consecutive day of losses for all three indexes. Stocks were lower even after delayed producer price index and retail sales data for November came in solid.
Gold prices fell to around $4,590 per ounce on Thursday as investors booked profits following a fresh record in the previous session, while a softer tone from President Trump reduced safe-haven demand. Trump said reports indicated that Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protesters was easing and that large-scale executions were not planned, suggesting a wait-and-see approach to the crisis. He also noted that he has no plans to remove Fed Chair Powell despite a Justice Department probe, though he added it is “too early” to say what he might ultimately do. On the data front, November producer prices, both headline and core, came in softer than expected, reinforcing signals from a tame December CPI report. The figures supported expectations that the Fed has room for multiple rate cuts this year. However, some policymakers remain cautious, warning that inflation pressures may be more persistent than anticipated.
WTI crude oil futures fell about 3% to around $60 per barrel on Thursday, breaking a five-day rally as easing fears of an imminent US military strike on Iran triggered a swift reversal in prices. The decline followed comments from President Donald Trump indicating he had been assured that executions of protesters in Iran had stopped, reducing expectations of near-term US intervention. Oil had rallied for five straight sessions amid concerns that unrest in Iran, OPEC’s fourth-largest producer, pumping roughly 3.3 million barrels per day, could disrupt supply or key shipping routes. Trump’s remarks eased those fears, prompting traders to unwind some of the geopolitical risk premium that had pushed prices to their highest levels since October.
Any U.S. attempt to seize Greenland by force would trigger “monumental consequences” for the Western alliance and the global order, Iceland’s former President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said, as President Donald Trump sharpens rhetoric on controlling the Arctic territory. Grimsson warned on CNBC’s “Access Middle East” that “the fallout would be on a scale that we have never seen in living memory.” Grimsson, the longest-serving president of Iceland from 1996 to 2016, currently serves as the Chairman of the Arctic Circle, the world’s largest annual gathering on Arctic issues. Trump has framed Greenland — an autonomous region within the Kingdom of Denmark — as central to U.S. national security, saying China and Russia were building up their presence in the region.
Iran reopened its airspace early Thursday after a temporary closure that barred most incoming and outgoing flights for several hours amid concerns the U.S. could carry out military strikes, raising risks for airlines. The restriction, which ended at 3:30 a.m UTC, or 10:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, was in place for 5 hours. Live data from flight tracker FlightRadar24 showed most aircraft still skirting Iranian airspace as of 4 a.m. UTC, though some domestic carriers had begun resuming flights. The initial order exempted international flights to and from Tehran, provided they received prior approval from Iran’s civil aviation authority. The airspace closure comes as tensions escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened intervention following a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran.
Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday cast a tie-breaking vote, blocking a resolution intended to halt President Donald Trump from using the military in Venezuela. Vance’s vote for the point of order on the measure, known as a war powers resolution, signals that Trump was able to successfully lobby enough Republican senators to switch their votes. Last week, five Republican senators joined with Democrats to advance the resolution — a stunning defeat for Trump after he ordered a strike that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. In the days since, the White House engaged in a furious lobbying effort to block the measure. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., one of the senators who voted for the measure, flipped his vote, saying earlier this week that the administration had been persuasive in addressing his concerns.
President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve have “grave” ramifications for the global financial system, a former European Central Bank governor has told CNBC. Jean-Claude Trichet, who is also a former governor of the Bank of France, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday that the Trump administration is “trying to change the game” by upending the long-held consensus of central bank independence that has held in developed economies for almost 50 years. On Sunday, Fed chair Jerome Powell revealed the Department of Justice had launched a criminal investigation into the $2.5 billion renovation of the central bank’s headquarters. Powell said the probe was a political attack in response to the Fed’s refusal to bow to pressure from Trump to lower interest rates further and faster.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that his administration will approve China sales of Nvidia’s H200 chip for artificial intelligence, but the U.S. government will take 25% of sales, one day after formal regulations were published by the U.S. government. Unlike Nvidia’s previous China-targeted chip, the H20, the H200 is a version of the company’s Hopper generation that is also sold in the U.S. and in other markets. The H200 was not specifically designed and slowed down for export. Trump pointed out in remarks on Wednesday that the H200′s performance has been exceeded by two generations of Nvidia chips currently in production, naming Nvidia’s Blackwell and Rubin AI chips. “It’s not the highest level, but it’s a pretty good level, and China wants them and other people want them and we’re going to be making 25% on the sale of those chips, basically,” Trump said.
Oracle was sued on Wednesday by bondholders who say they suffered losses because the company chaired by billionaire Larry Ellison concealed its need to sell significant additional debt to build out its artificial intelligence infrastructure. The proposed class action was filed in a New York state court in Manhattan on behalf of investors who said they bought $18 billion of senior notes and bonds that Oracle issued on September 25, shortly after the software and cloud computing company signed a $300 billion, five-year contract to supply Sam Altman’s OpenAI with computing power. These investors said they were blindsided when Austin, Texas-based Oracle returned to the capital markets seven weeks later to obtain $38 billion of loans to fund two data centers in Texas and Wisconsin to support the OpenAI agreement.
Citigroup beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, buoyed by a rebound in dealmaking and stronger demand for services to corporate clients. Wall Street banks benefited as mergers and acquisitions picked up late last year. Activity rebounded in the second half after tariff announcements weighed on markets in the first half and the U.S. government shutdown delayed deals. Renewed corporate confidence and a more accommodating regulatory backdrop prompted companies to strike deals, lifting fee income for lenders advising on mergers and capital raisings. Citigroup’s investment banking fees rose 35% to $1.29 billion, up from $951 million a year earlier. Revenue in Citi’s banking unit climbed 78% to $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter, and the bank posted record revenue with M&A advisory in 2025.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by CrowdStrike shareholders who said the cybersecurity company defrauded them by concealing its inadequate software testing and quality assurance procedures, before a July 2024 outage crashed more than 8 million Microsoft Windows-based computers worldwide. In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin, Texas said shareholders failed to plausibly allege that a large number of statements by CrowdStrike and top executives in regulatory filings, on earnings calls and on the company’s, website were materially false and misleading, or motivated by an intent to defraud.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) announced positive results from its Phase 3 MajesTEC-9 study of TECVAYLI monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The study showed a 71% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death and a 40% reduction in the risk of death compared to standard care treatments. The trial evaluated TECVAYLI, a bispecific T-cell engager antibody therapy, versus standard care treatments including pomalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone or carfilzomib and dexamethasone in patients who had received one to three prior therapies. All patients had previously received anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody therapy and lenalidomide. The study population was predominantly refractory to anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies (85%) and lenalidomide (79%), with more than 90% refractory to their last line of therapy. Patients receiving TECVAYLI showed a hazard ratio of 0.29 for progression or death and 0.60 for death risk reduction.