Oil prices jump on Iran attack fears, Wall Street slips on AI

LONDON: Crude oil prices jumped Friday (Feb 27) as worries about a possible US attack on Iran rose while Wall Street stocks slid as tech stocks suffered.

Crude prices jumped more than three per cent at one point as optimism faded following Thursday talks between the two nations that were seen as a last-ditch bid to avert war.

"With the US having called on its citizens to leave Israel and Iran, the threat of an attack on the Islamic Republic has dramatically risen, pushing the oil price to a seven-month high," said analyst Axel Rudolph at investing and trading platform IG. 

The benchmark international contract, Brent, briefly rose over US$73 per barrel.

Wall Street's main stock indices fell, with tech stocks taking a hit.

Financial services firm Block's announcement that it would slash its workforce by nearly half and rely heavily on AI to operate more efficiently sparked fresh concerns about the disruptive nature of the technology.

"Block won't be the last company making this type of announcement, which is what has the market spooked this morning about growth prospects," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare. 

Stock markets soared to fresh heights last year thanks to investors piling into stocks of tech firms which are piling massive amounts of money into developing and deploying AI.

But the march higher has not been steady in recent months as concern about artificial intelligence disrupting industries occasionally triggers sudden drops in markets.

Investors have also been occasionally seized by concerns that the share prices of tech giants have risen too high and that AI may not be profitable.

Expectations of stellar performance have also worked against tech giants.

Nvidia's share price slumped 5.5 per cent Thursday despite the chip giant announcing that its quarterly profits more than doubled to US$43 billion.

It fell another two per cent on Friday after OpenAI announced a US$110 billion funding round that includes the company.

Thursday's drop was partly due to investors already having priced in an increase ahead of the announcement, but "there are also concerns related to stretched valuations and Nvidia's dependence on capital spending by large technology companies investing in AI infrastructure", said City Index analyst Julian Pineda.

Trade Nation analyst David Morrison also pointed to investors shifting money from tech to other sectors. 

He pointed out that the S&P 500 is heading towards a 0.4 per cent loss for the month of February, while the Dow is set for a 1.2 per cent gain. 

"This divergence provides further evidence of a clear rotation away from high-growth AI-linked names into more traditional cyclical sectors, even as broader macro risks tied to trade policy and geopolitical tensions linger in the background," he said.

Meanwhile, shares in Netflix surged nearly 10 per cent after the streaming giant announced its withdrawal from the bidding war for Warner Bros after Paramount Skydance raised its bid.

In Europe, the jump in oil and metals prices helped London's FTSE 100 stock index buck the trend, rising to a fresh record high as energy and resources stocks rose.

Frankfurt ended the day flat and Paris fell.