Asian markets slump as US-Iran conflict escalates

Asian markets slump as US-Iran conflict escalates

Asian stock markets fell on Wednesday amid media reports mentioning that rockets were fired at an Iraqi airbase that hosts American troops.

According to the media news, Military officials in the US told that the Al Asad airbase, located in western Iraq, has come under attack, with multiple projectiles hitting it. Later on, the Pentagon confirmed the report, saying in a statement: “Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against US military and coalition forces in Iraq. It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting US military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Irbil, as per media statement.

Reacting to this news, the Nikkei 225 declined 2%, the Topix index fell nearly 2%, South Korea’s Kospi index, Shanghai Composite index and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 were down 1% each.

Meanwhile, oil prices spiked over 4.5%, with the WTI jumping over 4.53% to $65.54 a barrel, while gold prices surged more than 2% crossing its key $1,600 mark.

Wall Street's major indexes declined on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 119.7 points to 28,583.68, the S&P 500 lost 9.1 points to 3,237.18 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.88 points to 9,068.58.

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