Oil slips and the Nasdaq hits a record

Good morning. Wall Street finally had something to smile about. Hopes that the US and Iran may reopen talks pushed oil down four days in a row to below $100 a barrel, and Treasury yields followed. The Nasdaq set a new record, the S&P 500 rose 1.49% and the Dow gained 366 points.

The spark was news that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is recovering, plus President Trump saying he might meet Iran's president at the UN General Assembly. Reports that Washington has proposed a $5 billion fund to rebuild Middle East energy infrastructure damaged in the war helped too. But Saudi Aramco ramping up shipments from its Gulf terminals shows supply is still not back to normal.

Beneath the celebration there is something worrying. Even on a day when the index jumped, more stocks hit 52-week lows than 52-week highs, a combination not seen since 1999. Put simply, a handful of big tech names are carrying the index while the rest of the market sinks. Diesel also remains at a record, averaging $6.50 a gallon in the US.

For South Korea this is no distant story. With the Saudi East-West pipeline shut, analysts say Korea is the hardest hit of Asia's big importers, since 34.1% of its crude imports came from Saudi Arabia as of July.