HONG KONG: Stocks around the world were mixed on Monday as volatility in technology stocks persisted in Asia, while stocks in France led losses in Europe following mass protests against the rising cost of living and poor school conditions.
U.S. equity futures edged higher ahead of another week of American corporate earnings results.
Oil prices fell around 2% after U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to waive sweeping sanctions on Russia, including on Russian energy.
In early European trading, France's CAC 40 sank 1.3% to 7,854.31 after violent protests over the weekend. More than 2,000 people were arrested nationwide, and French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday condemned the violent demonstrators in a televised address.
Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.8% to 10,795.31, while Germany's DAX dropped 1% to 25,360.14.
In Asia, South Korea's benchmark Kospi index was up 1.8% to 5,768.01 on Monday, after falling sharply last week. The Kospi is down more than 17% over the past month, and still well below the 9,000 mark it crossed in June at its peak on the global AI frenzy.
Samsung Electronics was up 1.2%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix added 0.4%.
Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 0.6% to 64,916.70. Japanese chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron fell 2.6%, and OpenAI investor SoftBank Group dropped 2%.
A sell-off of technology shares from Asia to Wall Street recently put downward pressure on stock markets, as investor concerns grow over the sustainability of the artificial intelligence boom.
"We've been arguing for a while that volatility in tech stocks would pick up as the AI bubble continued to inflate: sharp and short-lived sell-offs were common as the 'dotcom' bubble inflated, for example, even as the market ultimately made very large gains on net," Capital Economics Head of Markets for Asia Pacific Thomas Mathews wrote in a commentary Monday.
Hong Kong's stock market was closed because of a holiday. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.4% higher to 3,730.92, after China reported better-than-expected growth of 4.5% for its economy in the July-September quarter.
CXMT, China's leading memory chipmaker, fell more than 7% despite the company forecasting a strong profit for the first nine months.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was 0.4% higher at 8,845.70.
Taiwan's Taiex fell 0.6%. India's Sensex slipped 1.2%.
Indonesia's benchmark stock index fell over 5% at its peak, to its lowest level since 2020, after it plunged over 11% on Friday following a warning from index provider MSCI that it would downgrade the country from its "emerging market" status.
On Friday, Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 declined 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite sank 2.1%.
Investors this week are watching for more big corporate earnings results from the U.S., including Meta, Netflix, General Motors, Tesla and IBM. Strong company earnings have been one factor that's been keeping U.S. stocks robust lately.
As technology shares face rising uncertainties, experts say government bonds might stand to benefit as investors look for relatively safe assets, though the bond market had also been turbulent over the past few weeks.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury eased to around 5.08% early Monday, compared with roughly 5.13% Friday. It had hit 5.35% earlier this month at its highest level since 2002, as inflation worries from the Iran war-driven energy shock and growing U.S. government debt pushed yields higher — investors demanded more in return because of the additional risks.
Oil prices were down early Monday, with Brent crude, the international standard, falling 2.1% to $107.55 per barrel.
Benchmark U.S. crude dropped 1.9% to $97.19 per barrel.
Oil fell after Trump late Friday signed an executive order to put new broad U.S. sanctions against Russia on hold just days before they were to come into effect, drawing disappointment from Ukraine, with the move likely resulting in more energy exports from Russia.
Trump's decision came not long after he said earlier this month he had reached a diesel deal with Russia in an attempt to bring down elevated U.S. fuel prices ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
But even with the decline, oil prices have remained elevated compared with those seen before the Iran war. Global oil supply risks are still high amid tensions in the Middle East, including uncertainty surrounding oil transport in the Strait of Hormuz, adding upward pressure to prices.
The U.S. dollar rose to 158.19 Japanese yen from 158.10 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1213, down from $1.1234.