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Asia-Pacific markets opened mixed as investors remained cautious despite a three-week extension of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, underscoring lingering geopolitical uncertainty.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend their ceasefire by three weeks following a meeting in the White House with top U.S. officials, President Donald Trump said Thursday.
“The Meeting went very well!” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the extension of the temporary truce.
The temporary truce, originally set to expire after 10 days, will now provide additional time for diplomatic efforts, with Washington also pledging to work with Lebanon to strengthen its defenses against Hezbollah.
U.S. oil futures rose about 1.23% to around $97.03 per barrel.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.71% while the Topix rose 0.30% after core inflation in Japan accelerated for the first time in five months, rising to 1.8% in March, with Iran war fueling energy worries.
Government data showed the inflation figure — which strips out prices of fresh food — was in line with the 1.8% expected by economists polled by Reuters, and was higher than the 1.6% seen in February.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.23%, while the small-cap Kosdaq was trading flat..
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 25,802, lower than the index’s last close of 25,915.2.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.29%.
Overnight in the U.S., stocks pulled back on Thursday, led by a drop in software shares and higher oil prices, as investor uncertainty about the trajectory of the Iran war weighed on markets.
The S&P 500 traded down 0.41% to close at 7,108.40, after earlier hitting a new all-time intraday high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 0.89% to finish at 24,438.50. It had also scored a new all-time high in the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 179.71 points, or 0.36%, to finish at 49,310.32.
—CNBC’s Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.
