US Vice President JD Vance said a “very good foundation” had been laid for negotiations towards a final deal and that Iran would allow UN nuclear inspectors to return to the country.
A graphic illustration of barrels of crude oil
Oil prices edged up Tuesday, though they remain below $80 following Monday’s drop that came after the US Treasury said it was temporarily lifting sanctions on Iran to allow it to produce, sell, and deliver crude oil and related products through August 21.
Maritime trackers also pointed to an uptick in tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
US Vice President JD Vance said a “very good foundation” had been laid for negotiations towards a final deal and that Iran would allow UN nuclear inspectors to return to the country.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said for his part that “a very brief discussion took place regarding the nuclear issue, but there was no discussion of details”.
President Donald Trump said the strait, the critical channel for much of the world’s oil, is now “totally open” to shipping after Iran closed it in response to US and Israeli forces bombing the country late February.
“We’re negotiating — we’ll see how that all goes –, but we have two things,” Trump said. “We have an open Strait, and we have a country that will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Asian equities fluctuated following a tech-led sell-off on Wall Street as investors again questioned a long-running AI-fuelled boom, while crude largely held losses that came on the back of positive US-Iran talks.
While Washington and Tehran flagged progress at peace negotiations in Switzerland, traders are struggling to build on last week’s rally, sparked by news of a deal to end the Middle East conflict.
Tech firms — the main driver of a surge across world markets as investors pile into all things AI — took a hit in Asia.
South Korean chip giants SK hynix and Samsung tumbled to drag the Kospi index down more than three percent, though it is still up more than 100 percent since the turn of the year.
Tokyo was also in the red, with tech investment titan SoftBank shedding more than seven percent and chipmaker Tokyo Electron down.
Taipei and Shanghai were down, with Hong Kong and Sydney flat. Singapore, Wellington, and Manila edged up.
The tepid performance followed a sharp drop on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq sank more than one percent as market giants Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft were sharply down.
23,761.34
Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.3 per cent at 4,149.51
Seoul – Kospi: DOWN 3.4 per cent at 8,809.27
Brent North Sea Crude: FLAT at $77.92 a barrel
West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.2 per cent at $74.00 a barrel
Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3242 from $1.3244 on Friday
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1427 from $1.1425
Dollar/yen: DOWN at 161.58 yen from 161.66 yen
Euro/pound: UP at 86.28 pence from 86.23 pence
New York – Dow: UP 0.3 per cent at 51,712.71 (close)
London – FTSE 100: UP 0.7 per cent at 10,437.85 (close)
