Oil prices fall as tech stocks struggle to rebound

Oil prices fell more than three percent Monday while global stocks were mixed as technology shares struggled to rebound from a selloff driven by concerns over artificial intelligence spending.

AI-linked companies faced another wave of selling after Wall Street giants including Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft signalled they would keep spending heavily on data centres and chips. The firms, along with Meta, are on track to spend more than $700 billion on capital investment this year, much of it on AI infrastructure, according to analyst estimates.

The Nasdaq ended almost three percent lower in New York. In Asia, Japanese chipmaker Kioxia fell nearly 16 percent after issuing a cautious outlook, while Taiwan's TSMC, South Korea's Samsung and SK hynix rose. Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Wellington, Bangkok and Taipei ended lower, while Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Jakarta rose. London, Paris and Frankfurt opened lower.

Oil prices sank after Axios reported that US President Donald Trump wanted negotiations with Iran to continue rather than resume his war before the US midterm elections. Iran's foreign ministry said Tehran was considering a two-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if Washington agreed to its conditions, after previously proposing a one-week timeline.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the “exchange of messages is still ongoing” through mediators. Trump continued to suggest possible military action, telling a rally that he wanted to “try and save all those lives” but that at some point “we're going to have to give them the hammer.”

At around 0815 GMT, West Texas Intermediate crude was down 3.4 percent at $100.58 a barrel and Brent crude was down 3.0 percent at $110.08. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed down 0.3 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed up 0.4 percent and Shanghai's Composite Index closed up 1.1 percent.