Sawt Falasteen - Oil surges on Mideast war escalation, tech stocks slide

The world's main crude contracts, Brent North Sea and West Texas Intermediate, both gained more than five percent in Asian trading hours and again neared $100 a barrel before easing.

The Israeli-Iran strikes were the first against one another since a shaky ceasefire put five weeks of war on hold, sparking fears the escalation could spark a new full-scale Middle East conflict.

In Asia, Seoul's Kospi index dived more than eight percent to lead a rout across the region after Friday's strong US jobs data fuelled bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate hike, hammering the technology industry.

The chipmaker Samsung dived more than 10 percent and its rival SK hynix shed 7.7 percent.

Wall Street had tumbled Friday, led by a four-percent drop for the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

Tokyo's stock market lost almost four percent Monday and Hong Kong closed down 1.2 percent.

"Rising borrowing costs reduce the present value of future earnings and can also weigh on investment spending," noted Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at trading group Swissquote.

"Both tend to hurt technology stocks more than other sectors because a larger share of their valuation depends on future growth," she said.

She added that "the bloodbath across tech is not only due to strong jobs data", noting "that investors who rode the chip wave would be tempted to take their profits and free up cash to jump on the SpaceX IPO" this week.

The rockets-to-AI behemoth led by Elon Musk aims to raise $75 billion in the biggest initial public offering ever, as the world's richest person pursues data centres in space and a trip to Mars.

Europe fared better, with Paris and Frankfurt losing about 0.5 percent in midday deals and London edging higher.

Elsewhere, bitcoin hovered around $63,000 after sinking below $60,000 on Friday to its lowest level since October 2024.

Following Donald Trump's presidential election win in November of that year, the world's biggest cryptocurrency had soared to record highs thanks to his vocal support for the sector.

- Key figures at around 1045 GMT -

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 3.6 percent at $96.46 a barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 3.8 percent at $94.01 a barrel

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 10,390.44 points

Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.3 percent at 8,190.00

Frankfurt - DAX: DOWN 0.6 percent at 24,617.30

Seoul - Kospi: DOWN 8.3 percent at 7,484.41 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 3.9 percent at 64,024.60 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.2 percent at 24,657.06 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 1.7 percent at 3,959.34 (close)

New York - DOW: DOWN 1.4 percent at 50,866.78 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1525 from $1.1520 on Friday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3342 from $1.3333

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 159.99 yen from 160.23 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 86.39 pence from 86.41 pence

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R.Shaban--SF-PST