Asian markets settled mostly lower on Friday tracking Wall Street’s fall overnight as US President Doanld Trump threatened both Iran and Yemen's Houthi rebels with ‘major military punishment’ after Houthis launched missile and drone strikes on oil tankers in the Red Sea to enforce a blockade on Saudi Arabia, which pushed the price of benchmark Brent crude past $100 for the first time since May. Market sentiments weakened further after the United States imposed new tariffs of either 10% or 12.5% on goods from its top 60 trading partners, including China, India, Japan and the European Union, accusing them of failing to halt imports of goods made with forced labor. China faces a new 12.5% levy, raising its effective US tariff rate to 22.2%. Japanese markets tumbled after data showed that Japan's core inflation rate rose to 1.6% in June but stayed below the Bank of Japan's 2% target for the fifth month in a row. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen was pinned near 40-year lows, drawing a warning from the US Treasury Department that excess volatility in the currency was undesirable. The Treasury also called for further interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan. Moreover, South Korea’s Kospi index plummeted nearly 6% amid concerns that the semiconductor super cycle may have passed its peak.
| Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,814.20 | -62.58 | -1.61 |
| Hang Seng | 24,963.23 | -247.58 | -0.98 |
| Jakarta Composite | 6,196.43 | -118.88 | -1.92 |
| KLSE Composite | 1,701.02 | -13.57 | -0.79 |
| Nikkei 225 | 64,611.15 | -1,811.45 | -2.73 |
| Straits Times | 5,588.34 | 6.58 | 0.12 |
| KOSPI Composite | 6,690.62 | -406.27 | -5.72 |
| Taiwan Weighted | 43,654.84 | -1,195.97 | -2.67 |
