![\"Pedestrians](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ce138421a72324751629b23b63b3f13b.jpeg\")
Pedestrians walk past an electronic quotation boards displaying the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in Tokyo on May 21, 2026 (Kazuhiro NOGI) \u00b7 Kazuhiro NOGI\/AFP\/AFP <\/p>\n Pedestrians walk past an electronic quotation boards displaying the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in Tokyo on May 21, 2026 (Kazuhiro NOGI) \u00b7 Kazuhiro NOGI\/AFP\/AFP <\/p>\n
Shares surged in Seoul, Tokyo and other Asian markets on Thursday, fuelled by hopes of a Middle East peace accord and by negotiations averting a planned strike at Samsung Electronics.<\/p>\n
Rallies in tech equities also drove gains, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX filed for what could be the largest initial public offering in history.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index closed 8.4 percent higher and Japan’s Nikkei index ended the day 3.1 percent up, after Iran said it was examining a new US proposal to end the war.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump described on Wednesday the talks as being on the “borderline” between a deal and renewed attacks.<\/p>\n
Cautious hopes rippled quickly through financial markets, although investors remained wary after weeks of false starts.<\/p>\n
Oil prices had fallen five percent on Wednesday, but on Thursday US crude contract WTI was up 1.5 percent.<\/p>\n
“Today’s rally is being driven by a genuine confluence of positive catalysts rather than any single headline,” Dilin Wu, research strategist at Pepperstone, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Blowout quarterly results from US chip titan Nvidia “has validated the AI infrastructure buildout thesis”, sending Asian chip-related shares higher, Wu said.<\/p>\n
However, “the Iran situation remains highly fluid,” she added.<\/p>\n
“Trump’s window for a deal expires in days, and if talks collapse, you get the reverse of today very quickly.”<\/p>\n
– Strike on hold –<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics closed 8.5 percent higher, after its labour union said late Wednesday that an 18-day strike had been put on hold.<\/p>\n
The dispute takes place against the backdrop of a global AI boom that has turbocharged Samsung’s business, while boosting national growth and the stock market.<\/p>\n
Around 50,500 workers had been set to walk off production lines as anger flared over how the company distributes its massive profits.<\/p>\n
Under the tentative deal, to be voted on by union members, special bonuses will partly be paid in company stock over 10 years.<\/p>\n
Around the region on Thursday, Taipei jumped 3.3 percent, Sydney gained 1.5 percent, with Bangkok and Wellington also up.<\/p>\n
However Shanghai shed 2.0 percent, Jakarta tumbled 3.3 percent, and Hong Kong was trading down 1.0 percent.<\/p>\n
Adding to tech investors’ excitement over the IPO for US rocket and satellite giant SpaceX was a Wall Street Journal report that ChatGPT maker OpenAI could be next.<\/p>\n
Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said OpenAI was preparing to file for a stock market listing in the coming days, possibly as early as Friday.<\/p>\n
OpenAI did not immediately reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
But shares in Japan’s SoftBank Group — a major investor in the top US artificial intelligence startup — skyrocketed 20 percent.<\/p>\n
– Key figures at around 0730 GMT –<\/p>\n
West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.5 percent at $99.77 a barrel<\/p>\n
Brent North Sea Crude: UP 1.4 percent at $106.46 a barrel<\/p>\n
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 3.1 percent at 61,684.14 (close)<\/p>\n
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.0 percent at 25,387.72<\/p>\n
Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 2.0 percent at 4,077.28 (close)<\/p>\n
London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.4 percent at 10,388.80<\/p>\n
Pound\/dollar: DOWN at $1.3428 from $1.3442 on Wednesday<\/p>\n
Euro\/pound: DOWN at 86.45 pence from 86.53<\/p>\n
Euro\/dollar: DOWN at $1.1610 from $1.1629<\/p>\n
Dollar\/yen: UP at 159.06 yen from 158.89<\/p>\n
New York – DOW: UP 1.3 percent at 50,009.35 (close)<\/p>\n
bur-kaf\/abs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedestrians walk past an electronic quotation boards displaying the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[15814,34,864,35153,795,42170],"class_list":["post-124325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-asian-markets","tag-iran","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-stock-market","tag-tokyo-stock-exchange"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116611685177829007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}