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Oil prices surged Thursday after US President Donald Trump ramped up geopolitical tensions with threats of a military strike on Iran, while safe-haven gold soared to a fresh record near $5,600.”With the Middle East tinder box looking set to ignite again, oil prices have moved sharply higher, lifting shares in listed energy giants,” said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.Stock markets mostly rose in Asia and Europe as investors also pored over company earnings and the US Federal Reserve’s latest policy update.London’s FTSE index hit a record in afternoon training, driven by surging mining shares.Frankfurt slid almost one percent, however, dragged down by German software giant SAP.Its share price tumbled nearly 15 percent after the company warned it would see a slowdown in new cloud computing contracts, a key metric for analysts, this year after missing targets last year.Gold eased after hitting a new record at $5,595.47 an ounce as investors rushed to assets deemed safe, including silver, which reached its own record of $120.44 an ounce.Demand for the precious metals is also being spurred by worries about the weakening dollar, sparked by speculation that Trump is happy to see the world’s reserve currency weaken despite the potential risk of pushing up US inflation.An uneventful policy announcement by the Fed on Wednesday did little to inspire buying, though observers said traders were optimistic that US interest rates will come down as Trump prepares to name his pick as the next governor of the central bank.Trump has meanwhile warned that Tehran must negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb.”The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” he added, referring to US strikes against Iranian targets in June.International benchmark Brent crude oil topped $70 a barrel Thursday for the first time since September with a gain of five percent.On stock markets, Meta rocketed by 10 percent at the opening after the US parent of Facebook and Instagram published quarterly earnings that topped expectations, as revenue grew along with huge investments in artificial intelligence.Microsoft, whose earnings disappointed analysts, tumbled 10 percent on concern for the return on investment for the software giant’s spending on AI.South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly profits Thursday, riding massive market demand for the memory chips that power AI.- Key figures at around 1445 GMT -Brent North Sea Crude: UP 4.3 percent at $70.27 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 4.71 percent at $66.19 per barrelNew York – Dow: UP 0.28 percent at 49,152.75New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.29 percent at 6,957.50New York – NASDAQ Composite: DOWN 0.91 percent at 23,639.46London – FTSE 100: UP 1.1 percent at 10,268.73 pointsParis – CAC 40: UP 0.7 percent at 8,123.61Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 1 percent at 24,578.16Tokyo – Nikkei 225: FLAT at 53,375.60 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent at 27,968.09 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 4,157.98 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1965 from $1.1944 on WednesdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3830 from $1.3797Dollar/yen: DOWN at 153.20 yen from 153.38 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 86.52 pence from 86.56 pence

Gold soared to a fresh record near $5,600 on Thursday and oil prices climbed after US President Donald Trump ramped up geopolitical tensions with threats of a military strike on Iran.”With the Middle East tinder box looking set to ignite again, oil prices have moved sharply higher, lifting shares in listed energy giants,” said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.Stock markets mostly rose in Asia and Europe as investors also pored over company earnings and the US Federal Reserve’s latest policy update. Frankfurt slid almost one percent in midday deals, however, dragged down by German software giant SAP.Its share price tumbled nearly 14 percent after the company warned it would see a slowdown in new cloud computing contracts this year after missing targets last year.Gold hit a new record at $5,595.47 an ounce as investors rush to assets deemed safe, including silver, which reached its own record of $120.44 an ounce.The precious metals are being helped by a softer dollar, sparked by speculation that Trump is happy to see the world’s reserve currency weaken despite the potential risk of pushing up US inflation.An uneventful policy announcement by the Fed on Wednesday did little to inspire buying, though observers said traders were optimistic that US interest rates will come down as Trump prepares to name his pick as the next governor of the central bank.Trump has meanwhile warned that Tehran needed to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb.”Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.”The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” he added, referring to US strikes against Iranian targets in June.International benchmark Brent crude oil briefly topped $70 a barrel Thursday for the first time since September with a gain of more than two percent.On stock markets, Meta jumped in after-hours trade after the US parent of Facebook and Instagram published quarterly earnings that topped expectations, as revenue grew along with investments in artificial intelligence.South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly profits Thursday, riding massive market demand for the memory chips that power AI. Ahead of the Wall Street open, US chemicals group Dow said it would slash 4,500 jobs and use artificial intelligence and automation to improve productivity and boost profitability by at least $2 billion.- Key figures at around 1145 GMT -Brent North Sea Crude: UP 2.2 percent at $6.03 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 2.6 percent at $64.88 per barrelLondon – FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 10,217.82 pointsParis – CAC 40: UP 0.5 percent at 8,110.53Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.9 percent at 24,597.26Tokyo – Nikkei 225: FLAT at 53,375.60 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent at 27,968.09 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 4,157.98 (close)New York – Dow: FLAT at 49,015.60 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1952 from $1.1944 on WednesdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3798 from $1.3797Dollar/yen: UP at 153.49 yen from 153.38 yenEuro/pound: UP at 86.62 pence from 86.56 pence

Gold demand surged to a record high in 2025 as investors and central banks flocked to the safe-haven asset as protection against US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable policies and their potential economic impact, industry data showed Thursday.The price of gold has surged in response, pushing on with a meteoric rise this year that saw it near $5,600 a troy ounce (31.1 grams) on Thursday. Purchases hit all-time highs in both volume and value last year, the World Gold Council said in its annual report, with demand exceeding 5,000 tonnes and value reaching $555 billion — a 45 percent increase year on year. “Uncertainty” has been the key driver of gold’s strong performance, said WGC analyst Krishan Gopaul.”On a geopolitical front, there were obviously concerns about the actions of the new Trump administration,” he said.The year was marked by Trump’s tariff onslaught against major trading partners including China, the European Union and India, upending longstanding global free trade tenets. Adding to that, Trump’s criticism of US monetary policy has fuelled concerns about the Federal Reserve’s independence and contributed to a weakening dollar.Those fears have led other central banks to significantly increase their gold reserves.Although central bank purchases of gold fell slightly in volume from the previous year, their total value increased by 13 percent in 2025.Gold now makes up more than 20 percent of central bank reserves, a level not seen since the early 1990s, the WGC said.Demand was also boosted by enthusiasm for exchange-traded funds linked to the gold price.”Gold ETFs have made gold more accessible to many investors” by making it as easy to buy as a company stock, Gopaul said.A fresh surge in gold’s price this week was driven by “safe-haven demand, geopolitical tensions and… as investors shift to hard assets from traditional currencies and bonds”, Liam Fitzpatrick, head of metals and mining research at Deutsche Bank, said Thursday.

British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca said Thursday that it would invest $15 billion in China through 2030 to expand its medicines manufacturing and research, during a trip by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Beijing.AstraZeneca’s chief executive Pascal Soriot was part of a delegation of business leaders accompanying Starmer on his visit. “China… has become a critical contributor to scientific innovation, advanced manufacturing, and global public health,” Soriot said in a statement.China is AstraZeneca’s second-largest market after the United States, where the company has recently invested heavily under pressure from President Donald Trump. “This will be our largest investment in China to date,” Soriot said at Beijing’s opulent Great Hall of the People, a company spokesperson told AFP.Starmer’s visit to China is the first by a British prime minister since 2018, and follows a slew of Western leaders seeking a rapprochement with Beijing as they pivot away from an increasingly unpredictable United States.”AstraZeneca’s expansion and leadership in China will help the British manufacturer continue to grow — supporting thousands of UK jobs,” Starmer said in the statement shared by AstraZeneca.”Unlocking opportunities for British businesses across the globe… is always the driving force behind my international engagements,” he added.AstraZeneca last year announced plans to invest $2.5 billion in China over five years to fund a strategic research and development centre. That announcement came as Leon Wang, former president of AstraZeneca China, was detained in the country in an investigation into suspected illegal data collection and drug imports by the group.AstraZeneca has operated in China for more than thirty years.- US efforts -Britain’s largest drugmaker has been making a recent shift towards the United States, which it hopes will account for half its global revenue by 2030.AstraZeneca will start trading its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in February, while keeping its headquarters in the UK and keeping its primary listing on London’s top-tier FTSE 100 index.It also plans to invest $50 billion by 2030 on boosting its US manufacturing and research operations.That announcement came after the United States in December exempted British pharmaceuticals from import tariffs under a unique deal that sees the UK increase spending on some drugs, including US treatments, by 25 percent.Separately, the White House has delayed for three years tariffs for AstraZeneca after it agreed to invest in US manufacturing capacity.The pharmaceutical industry remains a key target of Trump, with drugs tariffs imposed on other countries as he demands companies switch operations to the US. 

Gold prices soared to a fresh record near $5,600 on Thursday, while oil rallied after Donald Trump ramped up geopolitical tensions with his threatened military strike on Iran.The surge in safe-haven precious metals also saw silver hit another peak and has been helped by a softer dollar sparked by speculation that the US president is happy to see the world’s reserve currency weaken.An uneventful policy announcement by the Federal Reserve did little to inspire buying, although observers said traders are optimistic interest rates will come down as Trump prepares to name his pick as the next governor.Bullion piled on more than $300 at one point to top $5,595 after Trump said Tehran needed to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb.”Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.”The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” he added, referring to US strikes against Iranian targets in June.A US naval strike group Trump described as an “armada”, led by aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln, is now in Middle East waters, with the president saying it was “ready, willing and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary”.CNN said he was mulling an attack after nuclear talks failed to advance.Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that Tehran would respond immediately and forcefully to any US military operation — adding that its forces have their “fingers on the trigger” — but did not rule out a new nuclear deal.- ‘Inverse of confidence’ -Stephen Innes said the surge in gold indicated deeper structural concerns.”After blowing through $5,500 in early Asia, bullion is no longer trading like a commodity. It is trading like a referendum. Not on inflation. Not on rates. On trust,” he wrote.”Gold is the inverse of confidence. When belief in policy coherence weakens, gold ceases to behave like a hedge and instead acts as an alternative. That is what we are watching now. This is not fear of recession. There is doubt about fiat stewardship.”Rising tensions sent oil prices up more than one percent — with WTI at its highest since September and Brent at levels not seen since July — amid supply worries.On equity markets Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai and Seoul rose, while Tokyo was flat. Sydney, Wellington, Taipei and Bangkok dropped. London and Frankfurt edged up at the open but Paris fell.Manila sank as data showed the Philippines economy grew last year at its slowest non-pandemic rate since 2011.Jakarta tanked eight percent, prompting a temporary halt and extending Wednesday’s collapse that came after index compiler MSCI called on regulators to look into ownership concerns. Stocks later pared those losses to sit around three percent lower.MSCI also said it would hold off adding Indonesian stocks to its indexes or increasing their weighting, while there are concerns it could announce a downgrade from emerging market to frontier market, which could spark an outflow of foreign capital.”I think this sharp downward pressure may last one or two days,” said Hans Kwee, a stock analyst at PasarDana. “It was yesterday and today; at most, tomorrow it starts to move sideways.”Then next week the market should be more normal.”The dollar remained under pressure, even after Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC that “the US always has a strong dollar policy”, a day after Trump appeared to welcome its recent weakness.The Fed’s policy meeting ended with few surprises as boss Jerome Powell said officials were keeping tabs on data.But Matthias Scheiber and Rushabh Amin at Allspring Global Investments said attention was now on Trump’s choice to take the helm when Powell steps down in May.”The big focus will remain on the announcement of the new Fed chair, with the race wide open though a general expectation of someone more dovish to succeed Jerome Powell,” they wrote in a commentary.Hong Kong-listed property stocks surged on the back of a report saying Chinese leaders had rowed back on stringent measures aimed at reining in borrowing, which helped spark a chronic debt crisis in the country’s real estate sector that is still weighing on the economy.Troubled developers soared, with Country Garden up around 17 percent, Sunac rocketing 30 percent and Agile Group 15 percent higher.- Key figures at around 0815 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: FLAT at 53,375.60 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent at 27,968.09 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 4,157.98 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.4 percent at 10,189.97West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.6 percent at $64.24 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: UP 1.5 percent at $69.43 per barrelDollar/yen: DOWN at 153.21 yen from 153.38 yen on WednesdayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1974 from $1.1944Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3829 from $1.3797Euro/pound: UP at 86.58 pence from 86.56 penceNew York – Dow: FLAT at 49,015.60 (close)

Britain’s Keir Starmer is the latest Western leader to thaw trade ties with China in a shift analysts say is driven by US tariff pressure and unease over Donald Trump’s volatile policy playbook.The prime minister’s Beijing visit this week to promote “pragmatic” co-operation comes on the heels of advances from the leaders of Canada, Ireland, France and Finland.Most were making the trip for the first time in years to refresh their partnership with the world’s second-largest economy.”There is a veritable race among European heads of government to meet with (Chinese President) Xi Jinping,” Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, told AFP.This is “driven by internal rivalry to secure investments and market access before the China-US summits in February and April”, he said.It’s not just China looking more appealing these days: on Tuesday, India and the European Union announced a huge trade pact two decades in the making, a move to open new markets in the face of a strained status quo.Vietnam and the European Union also on Thursday committed to deeper cooperation on trade, technology and security.India and other emerging markets such as South America “are too small to sustain the world’s most export-dependent economies, which are in Europe”, Lee-Makiyama said.So they have no choice but to turn to Beijing — despite concern over its human rights record, and accusations of economic coercion.”Half of economic growth is generated by either the United States or China,” Lee-Makiyama said, adding that “the United States is hardly opening up”.- ‘No longer reliable’ -Trump’s unpredictable tariff onslaught signals that “the United States is no longer a reliable trading partner”, said William Alan Reinsch at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.For the new EU-India Free Trade Agreement, “you can argue that, ironically, Trump’s policies have pushed it across the finish line” 20 years since negotiations began, Reinsch told AFP.Starmer told Xi on Thursday it was “vital” to develop the two countries’ relationship, with the Chinese leader also stressing the need for stronger ties in the face of geopolitical headwinds.London and Beijing enjoyed what they described as a “Golden Era” a decade ago but relations deteriorated from 2020 when Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong.Nonetheless, China remains Britain’s third-largest trading partner, and Starmer’s centre-left government is keen to boost UK economic growth.While the European Union also wants stronger ties with China, it is alarmed by the current trade imbalance, with a gaping deficit of more than $350 billion to Brussels’s disadvantage.Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin urged “open trade” in his talks with Xi in early January, while France’s Emmanuel Macron denounced the trade imbalance on a visit to Beijing in December.- More Trump threats -China and India are also seeking ways to cope with Trump’s tariffs designed to boost US manufacturing and “make America great again”.”A select few countries should not have privileges based on self-interest, and the world cannot revert to the law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak,” Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng said at the World Economic Forum this month.In some cases, Trump has retaliated with more tariff threats, including a new 100 percent levy on all Canadian goods if the US neighbour makes a trade deal with China.Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China in Beijing this month, touting a “preliminary but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs.Under the deal, China, which used to be Canada’s largest market for canola seed, is expected to reduce tariffs on the products to around 15 percent, down from the current 84 percent.In return, Canada will import 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles under a preferential tariff rate.Carney’s visit “signalled a fundamentally new approach to how Ottawa intends to navigate a more fragmented, contested and uncertain world”, wrote Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy at APF Canada. But she warned it could risk being misinterpreted as “a softening of Canada’s assessment of the national and economic security challenges China poses”.Reinsch at the CSIS predicted that the latest agreements would leave the United States at a disadvantage in the long run, while noting they were “surprisingly traditional”.Negotiations on lower tariffs and reducing non-tariff barriers are “exactly what the world has been doing for the past 75 years”, he said.”The outlier is the United States.”

Vietnam and the European Union pledged to deepen economic and security cooperation on Thursday, upgrading their diplomatic relationship to hedge against an increasingly unpredictable United States.Vietnam and the EU must “stand side by side as reliable and predictable partners” at a moment when the “international rules-based order is under threat”, European Council President Antonio Costa said during a visit to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.President Luong Cuong, speaking at a joint press briefing, called the upgrade to Vietnam’s highest-level partnership a “new landmark” reflecting “sincere and mutual trust”.The announcement of the comprehensive strategic partnership comes less than a week after Vietnam’s Communist Party reaffirmed General Secretary To Lam as the country’s top leader, backing his vision for sweeping growth-oriented change.Vietnam and the EU signed a free-trade deal in 2019, with bilateral exchange growing by around 40 percent since then.But Hanoi’s ballooning surplus with the bloc has rankled European leaders who have called for the removal of non-tariff barriers on EU products such as automobiles.The two sides agreed on Thursday to deepen cooperation on trade, technology, energy and security, according to a joint statement.They also pledged to work together on supply chain security, critical minerals, semiconductors and artificial intelligence. “Science, technology and innovation” should become the “pillars of bilateral ties”, Cuong said, adding that Vietnam also sought cooperation on security and defence, especially at sea and in the cyber domain.- Beyond the US and China -Vietnam has emerged as a regional economic bright spot, clocking eight percent growth last year despite new 20 percent tariffs from its largest export market, the United States.Faced with deepening trade uncertainty, Vietnam is on the hunt for new markets beyond top trading partners, the United States and China.At its twice-a-decade leadership conclave last week, the party elevated foreign affairs to a “core” national function, alongside national defence and internal security.Upgrading ties with the EU is part of Hanoi’s effort “to diversify its export market beyond the US”, said Khang Vu, a Vietnam expert and visiting scholar at Boston College.”Vietnam wants to maintain an open international environment for trade, and the EU can help,” he added.Hanoi also has comprehensive strategic partnerships with China, Russia and the United States.It has agreed similar partnerships with nearly a dozen countries since 2022, seeking to tap their markets, knowledge and technology as it pursues a bigger international role. Vietnam has long practiced what its leaders term “bamboo diplomacy”, looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers.

Hong Kong residents hoping to cash in on a precious metals rally are buying up bars of silver as an alternative to gold that they say has become “too expensive” after reaching record highs.After a precious metals shop in Hong Kong’s central business district announced that hundreds of silver bars had sold out for the day on Wednesday, murmurs of disappointment rippled through a waiting queue.Despite increasing its supply to cater to strong demand, the store saw hundreds of bars snapped up in just over an hour.Retiree Ken Wong, 65, began queueing at the precious metals shop Lee Cheong at around 5 am and managed to buy five bars.He told AFP that buying silver offered him the chance to invest in a safe-haven asset quickly on the rise, whereas gold has become “too expensive”.Wong said that thanks to US President Donald Trump’s mercurial policies, he and many others have the opportunity to profit from the inflated prices of the precious metals.The price of gold surged to a record of more than $5,588 an ounce Thursday as investors sought safe places to put their money amid growing nervousness over rising global turmoil sparked by US policies.Silver also struck an all-time peak above $119 an ounce, and is up more than 60 percent this year, having surged more than 140 percent in 2025. Pakistani Meran Jawad waited in line outside the trader shop since around 6 am to purchase silver bars, which were in limited supply.”If you have silver or gold, it will be good for wealth,” the 38-year-old delivery driver told AFP, and the geopolitical impact brought by Trump was affecting “every person’s situation”.”Everything is expensive,” he said, adding that their salaries are not growing while the cost of living continues to rise.- ‘The real safeguard’ -Chen, a 40-year-old jewellery businessman based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, told AFP that his firm’s silver production sales so far this month were 10 times higher than in November.The company, which employs nearly 20 workers, has reduced its gold jewellery stock with orders increasingly shifting towards silver, mainly to wholesalers.”All of this hinges on market reactions… these developments are inextricably linked to the European and American markets, and Trump,” Chen said.Geopolitical tensions and rising inflation have driven the surge in precious metals investments, Samuel Tse, an economist at DBS Bank, told AFP. “Central banks are now diversifying their portfolio to gold,” Tse said, with “retail and institutional investors… allocating more assets into precious metals.” Outside another gold-buying shop, dozens also formed long lines, waiting to sell their precious jewellery. Vivian Lam, a finance worker in her 40s who calls gold a “scarce resource”, said she had not expected to see such a dramatic surge.She told AFP she saw people selling bullion bars several centimetres long to gold dealers when she was offloading her jewellery. Michael Ko, 55, stared at the fluctuating stock figures on his phone while waiting in line to sell the physical gold he had bought and stored in a home safe several years ago. A retiree from the investment industry, he said the rapid rise prompted him to take the profits to fund other opportunities. He told AFP that he purchased gold bars as it holds its value better. If political and economic crises “were to occur, it is the real safeguard”, he said. 

Gold prices soared to another fresh record above $5,500 Thursday, while oil advanced and stocks fell after Donald Trump ramped up geopolitical tensions with his threatened military strike on Iran.The surge in safe-haven precious metals also saw silver hit another peak and has also been helped by a softer dollar sparked by speculation that the US president is happy to see the world’s reserve currency weaken.An uneventful policy announcement by the Federal Reserve did little to inspire buying, though observers said traders are optimistic that interest rates will come down this year as Trump prepares to name his pick as the next governor.Bullion piled on more than $300 at one point to top out at $5,588.71 after the president said Tehran needed to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb.”Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.”The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” he added, referring to American strikes against Iranian targets in June.A US naval strike group that Trump described as an “armada” led by aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln is now lurking in Middle East waters, with the president saying it was “ready, willing and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary”.CNN reported that he was mulling an attack after nuclear talks failed to advance.Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned Wednesday its forces would respond immediately and forcefully to any US military operation — adding that its forces have their “fingers on the trigger” — but did not rule out a new nuclear deal.- ‘Inverse of confidence’ -Stephen Innes said the surge in gold indicated deeper structural concerns.”After blowing through $5,500 in early Asia, bullion is no longer trading like a commodity. It is trading like a referendum. Not on inflation. Not on rates. On trust,” he wrote.”Gold is the inverse of confidence. When belief in policy coherence weakens, gold ceases to behave like a hedge and instead acts as an alternative. That is what we are watching now. This is not fear of recession. There is doubt about fiat stewardship.”The rising tensions pushed oil prices up — with WTI at its highest since September and Brent at levels not seen since August — amid worries about supplies from the crude-rich region.Equity markets were down. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Seoul led losses.Jakarta tanked eight percent, extending Wednesday’s collapse that came after index compiler MSCI called on regulators to look into ownership concerns and said it would hold off adding Indonesian stocks to its indexes or increasing their weighting.The dollar remained under pressure against its peers, even after Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC that “the US always has a strong dollar policy”, a day after Trump appeared to welcome its recent weakness by saying it was “doing great”.The Fed’s latest policy meeting ended with little surprises as boss Jerome Powell said officials were keeping tabs on data.But Matthias Scheiber and Rushabh Amin at Allspring Global Investments said attention was now on who Trump would tap to take the helm when Powell steps down in May.”The big focus will remain on the announcement of the new Fed chair, with the race wide open though a general expectation of someone more dovish to succeed Jerome Powell,” they wrote in a commentary. “Governmental pressure on the Fed to cut interest rates will remain a continued theme this year.”- Key figures at around 0230 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.2 percent at 53,274.71 (break)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.2 percent at 27,764.65Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 4,144.25West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.9 percent at $63.79 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.8 percent at $68.95 per barrelDollar/yen: DOWN at 153.30 yen from 153.38 yen on WednesdayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1957 from $1.1944Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3799 from $1.3797Euro/pound: UP at 86.66 pence from 86.56 penceNew York – Dow: FLAT at 49,015.60 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 percent at 10,154.43 (close)

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly profits Thursday, riding massive market demand for the memory chips that power artificial intelligence.A global frenzy to build AI data centres and develop the fast-evolving technology has sent orders for advanced high‑bandwidth memory microchips soaring.That is also pushing up prices for less flashy chips used in consumer electronics — threatening higher prices for phones, laptops and other devices worldwide.In the quarter to December 2025, Samsung said it saw “its highest-ever quarterly consolidated revenue at KRW 93.8 trillion (US$65.5 billion)”, a quarter-on-quarter increase of nine percent.”Operating profit was also an all-time high, at KRW 20.1 trillion,” the company said.The dazzling earnings came a day after a key competitor, South Korean chip giant SK hynix, said operating profit had doubled last year to a record high, also buoyed by the AI boom.The South Korean government has pledged to become one of the top three AI powers, behind the United States and China, with Samsung and SK hynix among the leading producers of high-performance memory.Samsung said Thursday it expects “AI and server demand to continue increasing, leading to more opportunities for structural growth”.Annual revenue stood at 333.6 trillion won, while operating profit came in at 43.6 trillion won. Sales for the division that oversees its semiconductor business rose 33 percent quarter-on-quarter.The company pointed to a $33.2 billion investment in chip production facilities — pledging to continue spending in “transitioning to advanced manufacturing processes and upgrading existing production lines to meet rising demand”.- ‘Clearly back’ – Major electronics manufacturers and industry analysts have warned that chipmakers focusing on AI sales will cause higher retail prices for consumer products across the board.This week US chip firm Micron said it was building a $24 billion plant in Singapore in response to AI-driven demand that has caused a global shortage of memory components.SK hynix announced Wednesday that its operating profit had doubled last year to a record 47.2 trillion won.The company’s shares have surged some 220 percent over the past six months, while Samsung Electronics has risen about 130 percent, part of a huge global tech rally fuelled by optimism over AI.Both companies are on the cusp of producing next-generation high-bandwidth “HBM4″ chips for AI data centres, with Samsung reportedly due to start making them in February.American chip giant Nvidia — now the world’s most valuable company — is expected to be one of Samsung’s customers for HBM4 chips.But Nvidia has reportedly allocated around 70 percent of its HBM4 demand to SK hynix for 2026, up from the market’s previous estimate of 50 percent.”Samsung is clearly back and we are expecting them to show a significant turnaround with HBM4 for Nvidia’s new products — helping them move past last year’s quality issues,” Hwang Min-seong, research director at market analysis firm Counterpoint, told AFP.But SK still “maintains a market lead in both quality and supply” of a number of key components, including Dynamic Random Access Memory chips used in AI servers, he said.SK also this week said it will set up an “AI solutions firm” in the United States, committing $10 billion and weighing investments in US companies.