Asian markets hit intraday records before closing lower as oil and Hormuz risks cooled sentiment
📉 Asian equities opened strong on the back of Wall Street’s rally, but profit-taking emerged quickly and pushed several major indexes into the red by the close. The Nikkei briefly broke above 60,000 for the first time before ending down about 1.15%, while the KOSPI lost 1.5% and the Hang Seng also fell more than 1%.
🏭 What stood out was that the regional macro backdrop was not weak. Japan’s manufacturing PMI posted its strongest expansion in four years, while South Korea’s first-quarter GDP rose 1.7%, well above market expectations, showing that the early-session rally was still supported by solid economic and tech momentum.
🛢️ The reversal was driven mainly by oil and geopolitics. Brent moved back toward $103 per barrel as U.S.-Iran talks showed no clear progress and shipping disruptions in Hormuz continued, shifting market sentiment from optimism to caution, especially across import-dependent Asian markets.