Global shares are mixed after US stock rally, and oil prices gain more
than 1%
[October 28, 2026] By
ELAINE LAI
HONG KONG (AP) — World shares were mixed Wednesday after AI stocks drove
gains on Wall Street.
U.S. futures edged higher. Oil prices rose more than 1% after an attack
on a major Saudi Arabia refinery by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Tuesday
renewed supply concerns.
In early European trading, Germany’s DAX shed 0.2% to 25,539.36, while
the CAC 40 in Paris declined 0.1% to 7,882.52. Britain’s FTSE 100 was
down 0.4% at 10,645.50.
The future for the S&P 500 rose 0.1%, while that for the Dow Jones
Industrial Average was 0.2% lower.
In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi rose 6.8% to close at 6,023.73.
Memory chipmaker SK Hynix jumped 11.4% to its highest level in two weeks
after it reported a record-high operating profit of 83.3 trillion won
($62.8 billion) for the last quarter, up nearly seven-fold from a year
earlier and beating market estimates.
Samsung Electronics surged 9.1%. It is set to report its third-quarter
earnings Thursday.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rallied 1.1% to 63,954.19. Semiconductor
maker Kioxia Holdings climbed 9.6% ahead of its quarterly earnings
report on Friday.
The Bank of Japan is scheduled to begin a two-day policy meeting on
Thursday, with markets expecting its benchmark interest rate to be
unchanged.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng gained 0.3% to 23,104.91, while the Shanghai
Composite index gained 0.9% to 3,681.47.
Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 2%.
India’s Sensex fell 0.8%. Jio Platforms, India’s largest telecom
company, surged 21% in its market debut after the country’s biggest ever
initial public offering.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3% to 8,847.30.
Amid a busy week for central banks, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand
surprised market watchers by keeping its benchmark interest rate at
2.75%.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index edged 0.1% higher.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% and pulled within 1.2% of its all-time
high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added less
than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.2%.
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A dealer walks near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock
Price Index (KOSPI) in a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South
Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
 The majority of stocks within the
S&P 500 fell, but gains for influential AI stocks made up for that.
AI stocks rose to another winning day after swerving for weeks on
worries about whether their boom is under threat because of how
expensive it’s become for companies to borrow money to build data
centers and buy more AI chips.
Broadcom climbed 4% after announcing a $63 billion financing deal
where several Wall Street firms will help Anthropic get access to
Broadcom’s XPU AI accelerators and networking solutions.
Nvidia added 0.9% and CoreWeave, a company that’s borrowed money to
buy AI chips that it rents out to customers over the cloud, jumped
7.9%.
Companies overall are under pressure to deliver big growth in
profits. Expectations are high among financial analysts and
investors, and that’s what allowed their stock prices to run to
records recently despite high inflation, high interest rates and
other concerns weighing on the market.
Confidence among U.S. shoppers has tumbled recently as pressure
keeps building on them from high inflation. But a report on Tuesday
said that U.S. consumer confidence improved in October, when
economists expected further weakening.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady a day
before the Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce its latest
decision on interest rates. The Fed last month hiked the fed funds
rate for the first time in three years in hopes of slowing
inflation, but the widespread expectation on Wall Street is that it
will hold rates steady this time.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.99% from 5.00%
late Monday.
In other dealings early Wednesday, Brent crude oil, the
international standard, rose 1.4% to $110.99 a barrel. U.S.
benchmark crude gained 1.4%, to $101.33 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar slid to 157.74 Japanese yen from 157.91 yen. The
euro was trading at $1.1123, down from $1.1127.
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