GLOBAL shares sank on Monday after Wall Street ended last week with its worst day since October, while oil prices jumped more than $4 as fighting flared between Israel and Iran. South Korea’s Kospi led the global retreat, plunging 8.3% on heavy selling of technology shares and extending losses that on Friday gave the S&P 500 its biggest single day drop in months. The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.2%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.3%. Oil prices surged as Israel launched airstrikes early Monday, targeting central and western Iran in response to missile fire. Brent crude, the international standard, jumped $4.60 to $97.69 a barrel. Benchmark US crude surged $4.13 to $94.67 a barrel.

 

In early European share trading, France’s CAC 40 fell 0.7% to 8,161.42, while the German DAX dipped 0.8% to 24,552.77. Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.4% to 10,331.24. During Asia’s day, the Kospi in Seoul slipped 8.3% to 7,484.41 as Samsung Electronics, the country’s biggest company, dropped 10.2%. SK Hynix declined 7.7%. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped 3.9% to finish at 64,024.60. The Japanese Government revised the annualised economic growth rate to 1.8% for the first quarter this year, down from an earlier estimate of 2.1%. Elsewhere in Asia, Taiwan’s Taiex lost 3.5% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 1.3% to 24,642.33. The Shanghai Composite shed 1.7% to 3,959.34. Markets were closed in Australia for the King’s Birthday, a holiday. Friday marked the biggest one-day drop for Wall Street since Oct. 10, when the Trump administration threatened to impose a 100% tariff on imported goods from China. The S&P 500 sank 2.6% after a strong jobs report boosted expectations about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates this year, further darkening sentiment already dimmed by worries over a possible end to the rally in tech shares driven by the boom in investment in artificial intelligence. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4%, while the Nasdaq composite slumped 4.2%. In currency trading early Monday, the U.S. Dollar inched down to 160.