Brent returns to $100, Trump renews tariffs

Hello, my name is Anique Bao from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

There’s a lot to see in Asia this Friday. Brent crude oil prices settled above $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since late May after Yemen’s Houthis claimed they attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, opening a second chokepoint in a war that has already narrowed the Strait of Hormuz.

Bonds were sold as the inflation genie rattled the bottle. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to its highest level since January 2025, and the stock market, already saddled with losses of about $500 billion from Tesla and Alphabet’s AI spending plans, posted its worst session in a month.

President Donald Trump said the United States would hold Iran accountable for any future attacks and warned of “severe military punishment” after the U.S. military completed a 13th night of consecutive attacks on Iran after Yemen’s Houthis announced they had attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.

Separately, the president said that under the landmark nuclear deal signed this week, Saudi Arabia will not enrich uranium, but only if Riyadh joins the Abraham Accords and normalizes diplomatic relations with Israel.

Congress was divided Thursday on advancing a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at forcing President Trump to abandon the war with Iran. The House of Representatives voted 214-208 to direct President Trump to remove U.S. troops from hostilities with Iran. Hours later, the Senate rejected that version 49-47.

Brent crude oil futures exceeded the $100-a-barrel mark for the first time since May 26, rising about 7% to settle at $100.69. West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose about 0.11% to $92.28 per barrel during Asian trading hours.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose more than 4 basis points to about 4.7%, its highest level since January 2025, as inflation concerns reignited. The 30-year bond yield is 5.17%, the longest period above 5% since 2007.

But stocks have remained stable, with futures prices for the three major U.S. indexes little changed after heavy trading. In regular trading, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 1.2% and 2.2%, respectively, their worst single-day performance since June 23. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 1%, marking its fifth negative day in six days.

The European Central Bank kept interest rates on hold, but traders are already expecting a rate hike in September after ECB President Lagarde warned that renewed hostilities in the Middle East and the resulting rebound in oil prices pose an upside risk to the euro zone’s inflation outlook.

Japan’s core inflation rate gradually rose from a four-year low in June due to soaring oil prices.

The Trump administration plans to impose new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% ​​on dozens of countries suspected of violating forced labor laws, effective just after midnight ET on Friday, when Trump’s temporary 10% tariffs on countries around the world expire.

Investor reckoning over massive AI spending continues. Shares of Alphabet and Tesla fell sharply on Thursday after signs of increased AI spending at both companies spooked investors. Stocks recovered in after-hours trading.

Meanwhile, Intel posted a 25% revenue increase, the fastest since 2011, and its after-hours share price rose more than 4%. Google Cloud’s revenue has also skyrocketed, with cloud chief Thomas Kurian saying customer spending is up 50%.

But the city of Brussels has been less philanthropic, and EU regulators have fined Google 890 million euros ($1 billion) for favoring its own services, the first fine under the Digital Markets Act.

Oracle won a 10-year software contract worth up to $7 billion with the Pentagon, sending its stock higher in after-hours trading.

— Anique Bao

Moonshot AI accessed Nvidia chips despite China’s export ban, White House officials say

White House officials accused Chinese AI company Moonshot of accessing Nvidia’s advanced chips even though export controls prohibit it.

Moonshot announced the Kimi K3 on Friday. It closes the performance gap with frontier models such as Anthropic’s Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 Sol, and even outperforms them in some benchmarks. It is the largest open source model to date, with 2.8 trillion parameters representing the size of a neural network.

Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a post on X on Wednesday that the Chinese company “has acquired GB300-equipped servers, has access to Thailand’s GB300, and will likely train AI models.”

Nvidia, Moonshot AI, the White House and the British Embassy in the People’s Republic of China have been contacted for comment.

— Kai Nicole Schwartz