World shares are lower after South Korea's Kospi hits records, as Trump wraps up Beijing trip

Employees of Hana Bank celebrate in a photo-op to mark the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) of over 8,000 points at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

HONG KONG — World shares retreated Friday and South Korea’s Kospi index gave up gains after reaching an all-time high, as investors watch for developments from the Iran war and as U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up his summit in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

U.S. futures were down after Wall Street reached fresh records.

In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 traded 1.2% lower at 24,092.41. France’s CAC 40 also fell 1.2% to 7,987.27, while Germany’s DAX dropped 1.5% to 24,092.41.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 2% to 61,409.29 after rising briefly earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 6.1% to 7,493.18 on investors’ profit-taking, after crossing the 8,000 mark for the first time and reaching 8,046.78, in part powered by excitement around the artificial intelligence boom.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.6% to 25,962.73, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 1% to 4,135.39.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1% to 8,630.80.

Taiwan’s Taiex was 1.4% lower while India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.

Trump wrapped up his China visit on Friday after a series of meetings with Xi that touched on issues including U.S.-China trade, further economic cooperation and Taiwan. Investors are monitoring trade deal updates on areas such as American soybeans, beef and airplanes as Xi warned Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to clashes and conflict.

While there is some optimism over U.S.-China relations, some analysts suggest any deals should be looked at with a sense of caution.

They recalled how a number of the promised projects and investments that came out of U.S.-China deals from Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materializing, as tensions between Washington and Beijing rose in the following years.

“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of skepticism,” wrote Leah Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.

Trump also said in an interview that China could buy U.S. oil, more than a year after China effectively stopped buying crude oil from the United States following Trump’s imposition of hefty trade tariffs last year. Trump said Xi told him China “would like to be of help” in brokering an end to the Iran war.

Oil prices climbed more than 3% early Friday, as U.S.-Iran talks on permanently ending the Iran war stalled, and after a ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates was seized and another cargo ship near Oman was attacked.

Brent crude, the international standard, was 3.2% higher at $109.11 per barrel. It was trading at around $70 a barrel before the war in Iran started in late February.

Benchmark U.S. crude was up 3.7% to $104.94 per barrel.

Global energy flow has remained constrained with the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global oil and gas transit, still largely closed and as the U.S. imposed a sea blockade on Iranian ports since last month. The White House said on Thursday after a bilateral meeting between Trump and Xi that both sides agreed the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.

On Thursday, Wall Street shares gained with the benchmark S&P 500 rising 0.8% to 7,501.24 and hitting an all-time high for a second consecutive day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 0.7% at 50,063.46, the first time it closed at above the 50,000 level since the Iran war. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 0.9% to 26,635.22.

Shares of technology giant Cisco Systems jumped 13.4% following better-than-reported results and after the company said it was cutting fewer than 4,000 jobs. Nvidia rose 4.4% as investors’ hopes grew over updates on sales of its advanced H200 chips to Chinese firms as CEO Jensen Huang visited Beijing with Trump.

In other dealings, the U.S. dollar rose to 158.54 Japanese yen from 158.37 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1622, down from $1.1669.

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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.

Chan Ho-him, The Associated Press