Top stories for the morning: markets down due to oil rally, US preparing ground for new duties

Futures on U.S. stock indices and shares of the Asia-Pacific region collapsed amid a rally in oil prices The cost of Mark Brent at one point exceeded $100 per barrel. Donald Trump's administration has launched trade investigations against China, the EU and more than a dozen other economies, preparing the legal basis for new duties. Netflix is going to buy Ben Affleck's AI company, Bloomberg sources have learned. About these and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of March 12.

Brent crude prices jumped above $100 a barrel in trading on March 12, despite the International Energy Agency's biggest-ever decision to draw down 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, including 172 million barrels from U.S. stockpiles.

The market was skeptical about the effect of this measure: even this volume can cover only about a quarter of the possible shortage if supplies through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted, CNBC points out. In addition, the release of reserves may take 60-90 days, which increases fears of oil shortages, the channel explained.

- Japan's broad Topix index fell 1.3 percent, while the Nikkei 225 fell 1.6 percent.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 0.8 percent, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index was down 0.36 percent.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index lost 0.5% and the Kosdaq rose 1%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 1.3 percent.

- Futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 0.7 percent, while exchange-traded contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9 percent.

The war in the Middle East has not yet had a significant impact on technology supply chains, Seagate said, Bloomberg reports. The storage solutions maker notes that supply stability helps mitigate short-term risks, although investors are concerned about possible shortages of key materials, including helium, which is used in the production of chips and hard disks.

At the same time, the agency notes that the shutdown of LNG production in Qatar has already knocked out about a third of the world's helium production, which could exacerbate shortages of memory and components if the outage drags on. Demand for hard drives, meanwhile, is surging due to the global race to build data centers for artificial intelligence, and manufacturers have already sold out capacity for 2026.

Oracle said it has invested about $2 billion in a joint venture with TikTok USDS Joint Venture, through which the platform's U.S. operations are managed, CNBC writes. According to reports, the bulk of its non-market investment - about $2.2 billion - is related to this structure, which was created after the U.S. demanded that ByteDance sell TikTok's business in the country.

The new company is controlled by Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX Fund, each holding 15%, while ByteDance owns less than 20%. After the change of ownership, Oracle stores the data of American users and is responsible for monitoring the security of the platform, although the transition was accompanied by disruptions due to problems in data centers.

Netflix will pay up to $600 million for Ben Affleck's InterPositive, sources told Bloomberg. The company founded by the actor makes movies using AI. If the purchase goes through, the deal will become one of the largest for the streaming giant.

The technology of Affleck's startup allows you to change the material that has already been filmed - and this is the main difference from other AIs. That is, the AI does not learn from other people's creations, but works only with the movie for which it was "hired". The technology has already been used by David Fincher in a movie starring Brad Pitt.

Donald Trump's administration has announced the launch of trade investigations against China, Mexico, the European Union and more than a dozen other economies under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, CNBC reported. The goal is to create a legal basis for imposing new duties after the Supreme Court ruled that previously imposed "reciprocal" duties were illegal, the channel explained.

Investigations could lead to the imposition of duties, service charges or other restrictions if unfair trade practices and overcapacity are identified. The list of countries also includes Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and a number of other Southeast Asian nations.

Japanese payment company PayPay and a SoftBank structure raised $879.8 million in a U.S. IPO, placing securities at $16 apiece - below the announced range of $17-20, Bloomberg writes. The offering was the Japanese company's largest entry on a U.S. exchange in nearly a decade and valued the business at about $10.7 billion.

At the same time, demand from institutional investors significantly exceeded supply, despite volatility due to the conflict in the Middle East. Anchor investors include funds from Abu Dhabi and Qatar, as well as a unit of Visa. PayPay, founded in 2018 with the backing of SoftBank, had more than 72 million users in Japan by the end of last year.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor