Market Quick Take - AI chip rout spreads from Wall Street to Asia - 6 November 2026

Market drivers and catalysts

• Macro: Profound risk off goes global as markets to a post-US midterm election double take.
• Equities: US equities suffered a historic AI-led selloff, Europe proved more resilient despite chip losses, Asia followed sharply lower.
• Volatility: Implied volatility surged and the VIX curve inverted in the sharpest jump since April 2025
• Digital Assets: Crypto equities fell with tech while legislative prospects faded further
• Commodities: Commodities retreat as US election fallout reshapes oil, gold and copper outlook
• Fixed Income: Global bond yields tumble on profound weakness in risky assets
• Currencies: USD at first reluctant to rally on tumble in risk assets, but later powered higher, serving its traditional safe haven role.

Macro

• A post-election selloff in AI and chip stocks deepened on Thursday, alongside concerns that a Democratic-controlled Congress could bring closer scrutiny of the AI industry and slow the data-centre buildout. US indices posted their weakest session since April 2025, the selloff extended into Asia on Friday, with steep losses seen in Seoul and Tokyo,.
• US initial jobless claims fell 6,000 to 189,000, below every forecast, while third-quarter productivity rose at a 3.6% annualised rate and unit labour costs fell 0.7%. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said policy needs to move to a restrictive stance, and futures pricing put the chance of a December Fed hike near 70%, down from about 83% on Wednesday.
• The Bank of England raised the Bank Rate 25 basis points to 4% in an 8-1 vote, with the hawkish dissenter in favour of a 50 basis point hike. It was the BoE’s first hike since 2023, and warned of inflation reaching 4.9%. Governor Bailey said it was unlikely to be last hike unless Iran War resolved, but also said that it isn’t inevitable that this is the start of a long sequence of hikes.

More in our Macro Analysis & Macroeconomic News

Macro calendar highlights (times in GMT)

• 0700 – Germany Sep. Industrial Production
• 1330 – US Oct. Nonfarm Payrolls
• 1330 – US Oct. Unemployment rate
• 1330 – US Oct. Average Hourly Earnings
• 1500 – US Nov. Preliminary University of Michigan Sentiment
• 1500 – Canada Oct. Ivey PMI

Earnings events

• Friday: Enbridge, Moderna

Next week’s top highlights:

• Monday: KKR, Constellation Energy
• Tuesday: Softbank Group, Infineon
• Wednesday: Siemens Energy, E.ON, RWE
• Thursday: Cisco Systems, Applied Materials, Siemens, Allianz, Enel, Brookfield, Merck, Nu Holdings

For all macro, earnings, and dividend events check Saxo’s calendar.

Equities

• USA: The S&P 500 plunged 4.4% to 7,353.73, the Nasdaq 100 dropped 6.4% to 26,629.81, and the Dow fell 3.4% as investors reassessed the AI boom following the Democratic midterm sweep. Semiconductor stocks led the retreat, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sinking 12.3% amid fears that tighter regulation could slow data centre construction and reduce demand for chips. Nvidia lost 9.3% and AMD plunged 17.3% as investors reduced exposure to AI hardware, while Qualcomm declined 9.5% following disappointing profit guidance. Tapestry bucked the trend, gaining 7% after raising its outlook, while volatility surged ahead of Friday's US jobs report.
• Europe: The Stoxx 600 fell 0.4% to 654.87, the DAX and FTSE 100 both lost 0.4%, while France's CAC 40 gained 0.3%, as European markets reversed early gains amid Wall Street's technology selloff. ASML declined 6.6% as investors questioned the outlook for AI infrastructure spending, while French chipmaker Soitec plunged 16.7% amid broader semiconductor weakness. Rheinmetall sank 16.1% after cutting its annual sales forecast because of project delays, whereas Air France-KLM gained 12.1% following stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings. Europe's lower exposure to AI stocks helped limit losses, even as the Bank of England raised interest rates and signalled further tightening could follow.
• Asia: Asian equities followed Wall Street sharply lower on Friday, with South Korea's Kospi briefly plunging 8.8% to 4,911.28 and triggering a 20-minute trading halt, while Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped more than 6% intraday and broke below 60,000. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix suffered heavy selling as investors worried that tighter US regulation could slow AI data centre investment and weaken memory-chip demand. In Japan, SoftBank Group fell 11.0% and Kioxia lost more than 12.0% during morning trading amid the broader technology retreat. Hong Kong's Hang Seng showed greater resilience, while investors watched whether the sharp selling would ease after the initial panic.

More in our Equity Trading - Stock Market Analysis & News

Volatility

VIX 28.17 | VIX FUTURES: 23.750 (Nov) | TERM STRUCTURE: BACKWARDATION | SKEW: ELEVATED (149.37) | MARKET REGIME: HIGH VOL BEAR | AS OF ~05:00 CET

• Thursday's chip rout repriced the whole volatility complex, and the shape matters as much as the size. The VIX jumped almost 70% to 28.17 and one-day vol tripled into payrolls, leaving the cash curve inverted from one day out to one year.
• The front VIX future still trades well below spot, so traders are paying up for the next few weeks while pricing partial calm by spring. The November contract, which spans the 9 December Fed, now carries the steepest premium. Nasdaq vol outran the S&P gauge and dispersion rose as SKEW slipped, marking a concentrated tech unwind. MOVE stayed below 100. Options price about 1.49% for today's payrolls at 14:30 CET.

More in our Options Trading - Stock Market Analysis & News

Digital Assets

BITCOIN ~75,755 -0.34% | ETHEREUM ~2,231 -0.23% | IBIT 43.03 -5.07% | ETHA 50.77 -7.25% | AS OF ~05:00 CET

• Bitcoin gave back its post-election gains on Thursday as the tech rout spilled into crypto, and liquidations near USD 1.1 billion cleared out leveraged longs. The listed names fell harder than the coin.
• AI-exposed miners took the worst of it, IREN and CleanSpark each losing about 17%, as Microsoft's reported cooling on neocloud projects and a Texas governor-elect hostile to data centres hit the hosting story.
• Coinbase, Strategy and Circle fell between 8.7% and 9.7% with the tech tape, while the CLARITY Act's lame-duck prospects faded. Bitcoin near USD 75,755 now sits almost exactly on Strategy's average purchase cost, ahead of MSCI's 11 November index decision.

Commodities

• Gold consolidates following strong short-covering rally: The pullback yesterday and during Asian trading today appears driven by broader risk aversion stemming from the latest stock market rout, and profit-taking after CTAs and hedge funds completed an initial round of aggressive short covering. A rebound in oil prices, whose earlier slump helped trigger the rally, has added to the consolidation pressure. Key support is once again the USD 3,970-75 area with focus on developments in US equities and, not least, President Trump's next moves regarding Iran. Meanwhile, lower Treasury yields and fading expectations of a December Fed rate hike may provide underlying support, partly offsetting renewed dollar strength.
• Oil: Brent has recovered strongly to trade around USD 100 after a week-long slump found support at the 200-day moving average near USD 93.55. The rebound reflects growing recognition that the recent selloff was driven more by hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough than concrete progress, with the path towards a US-Iran peace deal still long and fraught with obstacles. Iran, whose oil exports have slumped to near zero, is demanding an end to the US naval blockade, sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets before agreeing to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In the near term, attention remains firmly on Washington and how a politically weakened President Trump will respond following his midterm election defeat.
• Commodities: The Bloomberg Commodity Total Return Index (BCOM TR) is heading for a 4% weekly loss, its worst since April 2025, trimming its year-to-date gain to 27%, still nearly four times the S&P 500's return. A surprise US midterm election outcome has triggered a broad market reassessment, weighing on energy, copper and agriculture. Despite Friday's rebound, crude remains down 12% on the week, while copper has lost 4.1% amid fading AI and tariff expectations, and agriculture is down around 3%. Precious metals stand out with a 4.2% gain following a strong rebound from recent lows.

More in our Commodity News, Analysis & Commentary

Fixed Income

• US Treasury yields fell sharply on the profound and sudden meltdown in risky asset Thursday, with the benchmark 2-year treasury yield dropping over 11 basis points to close Thursday near 4.46%, the lowest level in nearly two months, while the benchmark 10-year yield fell only about five basis points on the day, ending near 4.83% before edging higher in early trading Friday.
• Japan’s government bonds rallied steeply Friday as well, sending the benchmark 2-year JGB yield tumbling by the most since the April 2025 Trump “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, down over 13 basis points to 1.74%, while the 10-year JGB fell over 12 basis points to 2.66%, a four-month low.
• Weak risk sentiment also impacted US high yield corporate bonds Thursday, as the Bloomberg index we track of the spread between US high yield bonds and US treasuries widened 16 basis points to match the recent cycle high since early 2025 at 340 basis points.

Currencies

• The US dollar was slow to firm on the profound risk-off backdrop Thursday, but eventually caught a broad bid against most other currencies into early Friday hours as EURUSD rolled back below 1.1190 after testing the range highs near 1.1270 early Thursday. USD strength was far more in evidence against the smaller G-10 currencies, with AUDUSD tumbling below 0.6880 after trading 0.7000 early Thursday before the risk-off move. About half of that move came in the early hours of Friday and takes the pair suddenly to its lowest level since early April.
• The JPY traded in choppy fashion Thursday and Friday, with USDJPY continuing to find resistance in the massive 158.50 area, but a sell-off below 157.50 late Thursday and into Friday, possibly inspired by official intervention from Japan’s Ministry of Finance, was mostly wiped away by early hours Friday as the pair rebounded back above 158.00.
• As noted above, the BoE surprised slightly to the hawkish side with its guidance after hiking rates as expected Thursday. But the profound risk-off backdrop erased the rise in UK short-date bond yields and sterling’s modest rally also reversed, leaving EURGBP almost unchanged after an attempt lower on the lows for the cycle, while GBPUSD rolled over after testing 1.3500, pushing to 1.3415 by early trading in Europe on Friday.
• Norway’s Central Bank sounded more hawkish than expected – guiding for likely further rate increases, but the modest NOK rally was quickly wiped away by the risk-off backdrop.

More on currencies in our dedicated section: Forex Trading News & Analysis