Oil prices jump as renewed Middle East tensions rattle markets, while Asian tech stocks tumble.
South Korean stocks suffered one of their steepest plunges Wednesday, with the blood-letting that has battered chip firms over the past month deepening as nervous investors unwound their bets on the AI boom.
Oil traders were also suffering as volatility returned to the crude market after US and Saudi warplanes carried out strikes on Tuesday against Iran-backed militants in Iraq who launched more than two dozen drone attacks in recent days, the US military said.
The strikes targeted "Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure", US Central Command announced in a statement.
CENTCOM had said earlier that Tehran launched multiple ballistic missiles in an "attempted surprise attack on US forces based in the Middle East", but they were all intercepted.
