World Shares Mixed, Oil Above $100     03/16 06:12

   Crude oil stayed above $100 a barrel on Monday and Gulf countries reported 
more attacks by Iran as the war entered its third week, while share prices were 
mixed.

   BANGKOK (AP) -- Crude oil stayed above $100 a barrel on Monday and Gulf 
countries reported more attacks by Iran as the war entered its third week, 
while share prices were mixed.

   A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, was up 2.5% at $105.70. 
It's climbed more than 40% since the war began.

   U.S. benchmark crude gained 1.6% to $100.29 per barrel. It's up nearly 50% 
since the war began.

   U.S. futures were buoyant, with the contract for the S&P 500 up 0.6% while 
that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%.

   In early European trading, Germany's DAX edged 0.1% lower to 23,423.51, 
while the CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.2% to 7,893.16. Britain's FTSE 100 inched up 
0.2% to 10,276.43.

   In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 edged 0.1% lower to 53,751.15, while the Kospi 
in South Korea climbed 1.1% to 5,549.85.

   Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.5% to 25,834.02 after the Chinese government 
reported stronger than forecast economic data for February. The Shanghai 
Composite index shed 0.3%, however, to 4,084.79.

   In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gave up 0.4% to 8,583.40.

   Taiwan's Taiex edged 0.2% lower, while India's Sensex was little changed.

   On Friday, Wall Street's losses deepened as the war again pushed prices 
above $100 per barrel, ratcheting up inflationary pressure on the global 
economy.

   The S&P 500 fell 0.6%. The benchmark index is now down 3.1% so far this year.

   The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite finished 
0.9% lower. Those indexes also ended the week with their third straight weekly 
loss.

   Since being attacked by the United States and Israel more than two weeks 
ago, Iran has been regularly hitting Israel, American bases and its Gulf Arab 
neighbors' energy infrastructure with drones and missiles. It has also 
retaliated by effectively stopping cargo traffic through the narrow Strait of 
Hormuz, where a fifth of the world's oil typically sails. That has oil 
producers cutting production because their crude has nowhere to go.

   In just over a week since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, more than 12 
million barrels of oil equivalent per day have been taken offline, according to 
independent research firm Rystad Energy.

   Only handful of tankers have reportedly passed through the strait.

   "The truth is that at this point, much of the market is operating in the 
fog," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. "For context, 
the strait normally handles roughly 25 oil and LNG tankers every single day."

   If the war continues to hamper the production and transportation of oil from 
the Persian Gulf, it could cause a damaging surge in inflation.

   Members of the International Energy Agency are making a record 400 million 
barrels of oil available from emergency reserves, though it appears to have 
done little to reassure markets.

   Higher expectations for inflation complicate the Federal Reserve's efforts 
to bring interest rates lower to help the economy. The U.S. central bank is not 
expected to cut rates at its policy meeting this week.

   A new snapshot of consumer spending Friday shows inflation crept higher in 
January, even before the Iran war caused oil and gas prices to spike.

   The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer prices rose 2.8% in 
January compared with a year earlier. But excluding volatile food and energy, 
core prices rose 3.1%, the highest jump in nearly two years.

   Even so, consumers still lifted their spending at a solid 0.4% pace in 
January, with their incomes rising at the same pace, according to the report.

   Wall Street also got an update on how U.S. economic growth fared in the 
October-December quarter. The economy, hobbled by last fall's 43-day government 
shutdown, grew at a sluggish 0.7% annual rate, a downgrade from its initial 
estimate last month.

   In other trading early Monday, the U.S. dollar slipped to 159.34 Japanese 
yen from 159.55 yen. The euro rose to $1.1441 from $1.1425.