World Shares Mixed, Oil Prices Slip    07/30 05:55

   Oil prices bounced between gains and losses on Thursday and world shares 
were mixed, with South Korea's Kospi falling again after losing more than 16% 
over the past two days due to selling of stocks related to artificial 
intelligence-related.

   HONG KONG (AP) -- Oil prices bounced between gains and losses on Thursday 
and world shares were mixed, with South Korea's Kospi falling again after 
losing more than 16% over the past two days due to selling of stocks related to 
artificial intelligence-related.

   Crude prices remained volatile after the U.S. said early Thursday it had 
conducted a "heavy wave" of strikes against Iran, responding to an attack on a 
U.S. base.

   Brent crude, the international standard, slipped 0.2% to $87.92 per barrel 
after rising earlier. It was trading around $72 a barrel in late February, 
before the Iran war began.

   Benchmark U.S. crude lost 0.3% to $84.25 per barrel.

   The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.4% while that for the Dow Jones 
Industrial Average gained 0.2%.

   In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to 10,930.40. 
France's CAC 40 surged 0.8% to 8,477.55. Germany's DAX was nearly unchanged at 
25,457.08.

   In South Korea, recent declines in its benchmark Kospi, a big beneficiary of 
the global boom in AI, have been viewed by some analysts as a reflection of 
broader doubts about massive investments in building AI capacity.

   The Kospi fell 1.2% to 5,593.56, after falling 10.8% on Tuesday and nearly 
6% on Wednesday. The benchmark has fallen more than 38% from its all-time 
closing high of more than 9,100 in June, though it's still up nearly 30% so far 
this year.

   Samsung Electronics fell 0.7%, even after the South Korean technology giant 
reported a record operating profit for the latest quarter, largely in line with 
estimates.

   Chipmaker SK Hynix lost 5.6% after sinking more than 9% on Wednesday, when 
it also reported a record quarterly operating profit, which ballooned nearly 
sixfold. That was still lower than what analysts had expected and disappointed 
investors dumped its shares.

   In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 gained 0.7% to 61,867.43, recovering some of its 
losses after falling 1.5% a day earlier. Open-AI investor SoftBank Group fell 
2.5%. But computer chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron climbed 4.5%. Memory 
chipmaker Kioxia Holdings added 2.9%.

   Taiwan's Taiex, which was also lifted by the AI boom, closed 0.3% lower. Its 
leading chipmaker TSMC edged up 0.2%.

   Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged up 0.2% to 25,858.88. The Shanghai Composite 
index lost 0.6% to 3,804.69.

   In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.8% to 8,967.70.

   India's Sensex was mostly unchanged.

   On Wednesday, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.5% and the Dow industrials 
fell 2.2%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 1.7%.

   Several chipmaking big names fell. Nvidia lost 3.6% and AMD, or Advanced 
Micro Devices, shed 5.5%. Broadcom declined 2.8%.

   The U.S. stocks traded lower also after the Federal Reserve decided to hold 
interest rates steady even as some members on the policymaking committee wanted 
to raise rates.

   The Fed's chairman, Kevin Warsh, reiterated his commitment to get inflation 
back to 2% following years of faster-than-hoped increases in prices, but he 
also stuck to his plan of giving financial markets fewer clues about what the 
Fed may do with interest rates in the near future.

   With less guidance from the Fed, financial markets may be set for more 
volatile trading amid the uncertainty.

   "Did the Fed take an explicit change in its policy rate today?" Warsh asked 
rhetorically in a news conference following the Fed's decision. "No, but I 
think that's the beginning of the story."

   In the bond market, the yield of the U.S. 10-year Treasury was at 4.68%, up 
from 4.61% late Tuesday.

   In other dealings early Thursday, the U.S. dollar rose to 163.83 Japanese 
yen from 163.41 yen. The euro rose to $1.1475 from $1.1467.