U.S. crude futures settled at $71.41 a barrel, down $0.67 or 0.93%.

Hanwha Ocean sold roughly $2bn in the USD/KRW forward market on Friday, sources said; the company did not comment. The report coincided with the won strengthening about 0.6% to 1,500 per USD. The intervention occurred as Korean policymakers seek to stem won weakness and amid market expectations that SK Hynix’s planned US ADR issuance will slow offshore sales of Korean equities and reduce capital inflows. South Korea’s deputy finance minister said he expects local-currency supply-demand conditions to shift by H2 2026 and predicted exporters’ dollar holdings will generate inflows via FX forwards.

Morgan Stanley analysts wrote after an investor meeting with NVIDIA management that despite a large market cap and recent relative underperformance, NVIDIA is still their preferred semiconductor stock. They said AI hyperscale cloud providers—about half of current data‑center revenue—are exploring custom‑chip alternatives but NVIDIA "will retain a large portion of that business" and both standard and custom categories should still grow. Demand from Neocloud, industrial and sovereign data centers remains strong and the Vera Rubin chip is expected to ship on schedule. The analysts warned valuation multiples may be capped by NVIDIA's size and index weight but said they expect the valuation gap to close over time and wrote, "Our conviction remains strong."