Key Takeaways
- AI-driven equities face their biggest setback in months. A sharp selloff in semiconductor and technology stocks, triggered by valuation concerns and disappointing guidance from key AI-related companies, has halted the nine-week Wall Street rally and raised questions about the sustainability of the AI super cycle.
- Middle East tensions have reignited energy market risks. Fresh Iran-Israel hostilities pushed crude oil prices higher, reviving concerns over global energy supply disruptions and reinforcing inflationary pressures across major economies.
- Strong US labour data has revived expectations of a Fed rate hike. A significantly stronger-than-expected US payrolls report has increased the probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike later this year, driving Treasury yields higher, strengthening the US dollar, and tightening global financial conditions.
- Chart of the day: WTI crude gapped up and rebounded from minor ascending channel support at $91.40/bbl.
Chart of the Day – WTI Crude Erased Last Friday’s Losses
Fig. 1: West Texas Oil CFD minor trend as of 8 Jun 2026 (Source: TradingView). The information presented is historical information, and past performance is not indicative of future performance.
The price action of the West Texas Oil CFD (a proxy for the WTI crude oil futures) gapped up by 3.3% in today’s Asia opening session to trade at $95.10 per barrel at this time of writing, erasing last Friday’s loss of 3%.
Near-term technicals have flipped bullish, as the hourly RSI momentum indicator exited oversold territory and broke out above its former descending resistance.
Watch the 91.40 key short-term pivotal support, and a clearance above 95.45 would see the intermediate resistance at 100.00 (also close to the 20-day and 50-day moving averages) in the first step.
However, a break and an hourly close below 91.40 would signal a retest of the 29 May 2026 minor swing low at 89.00. Below it extends losses towards the next intermediate support at 85.50.
Top Macro Headlines
- Tech deflates in brutal Wall Street reversal: Wall Street’s historic nine-week winning streak ground to a violent halt on Friday as a massive tech-led selloff intensified. The Nasdaq 100 Index plunged 4.8%, and a broad gauge of chipmakers tumbled 10% in its worst single-session routing in months, as growing anxiety over AI overvaluation triggered widespread institutional profit-taking.
- Geopolitical escalation as Iran fires on Israel: Middle East tensions exploded over the weekend. Following an Israeli strike on Beirut, Iran directed a massive salvo of missiles targeting Israeli territory. WTI and Brent crude futures immediately spiked 2.8% to hit at $92.70 and $95.40 a barrel in today’s Asia opening session, though gains moderated slightly after President Trump said the flare-up would not derail the overarching regional peace framework negotiations.
- Hot US jobs report shifts Fed target: The US labour market showed unexpected, robust resilience, with May nonfarm payrolls adding 172,000 positions, shattering the consensus forecast of 85,000. While the unemployment rate held at 4.3%, the red-hot hiring numbers prompted Fed funds futures traders to immediately price in a 60% probability of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike as early as October 2026.
Key Macro Themes
- The Great AI narrative fray: The unyielding “AI-drives-everything” bull market faced its harshest reality check over the weekend. A combination of hot macroeconomic data and localised tech earnings disappointment (e.g., Broadcom) has investors fiercely debating whether the current AI market cap demands a tactical correction, particularly as blockbuster private listings such as SpaceX threaten to drain liquidity from broader equity markets.
- The Mega-IPO liquidity drain: Wall Street trading desks are highly anxious over an unprecedented wave of massive capital calls coming to market. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has locked in a fixed $135/share price targeting a record-shattering $75 billion public raise this week, while generative AI giant Anthropic just filed confidentially for an IPO targeting a near 1$ trillion valuation. Capital allocators are actively selling existing liquid equities to free up space for these generational private tech entries.
- Sovereign bond yield resurgence: The combination of an inflationary energy supply shock and an unrelenting US jobs landscape has completely crushed any remaining expectations for central bank rate cuts. Two-year Treasury yields surged 10 basis points on Friday to 4.15%, signalling a profound multi-month repricing of global cost of capital.
Global Markets Impact
Equities: S&P 500 futures fell 0.3%, and Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.2% in early Asian trade before easing towards a slight gain of 0.01% and 0.35%, after Friday’s steep losses, where the S&P 500 sank 2.6%. The medium-term uptrend, which began late March 2026, has officially stalled.
Fixed Income: US Treasuries tumbled; two-year yields closed Friday up 10 bps to 4.15%. The 10-year Treasury yield extended its gains by another 4 bps to 4.57% in early Monday trading, maintaining immense upward pressure.
FX: The US Dollar Index gained aggressively against all G-10 peers on a cocktail of safe-haven flows and the hawkish Fed rate adjustment. The Euro flattened out at $1.1519, a 2-month low, while the British Pound hovered defensively at $1.3317, near a 1-month low. In addition, the AUD tumbled to around a 2-month low of 0.7022, and the JPY grinded lower towards the recent intervention zone of 160.45/65 per US dollar.
Commodities: Brent crude gapped higher by 2.8% to trade at $95.40/bbl on the back of Iranian missile deployment. Spot Gold extended its losses from Friday, slipping to $4,315/oz as expectations of higher-for-longer global interest rates diminished its non-yielding appeal.
Asia Pacific Impact
- Regional AI stocks routed: Tech-heavy Asian benchmarks bore the brunt of global tech contagion on Monday morning. South Korea’s Kospi index, the world’s top-performing gauge this year due to its exposure to memory and AI chips, tumbled 5.5% on Friday and opened 7% lower today. The Nikkei 225 also posted steep losses of 5%. Blood baths are seen in other Asia-Pacific benchmark stock indices: Hang Seng Index (-1.7%), China A50 (-1.6%), CSI 300 (-2.4%), ASX 200 (-0.7%), and STI (-1.4%).
- Currency interventions in play: The South Korean won slid to its weakest valuation framework since 2009 to an intraday high of 1,559 per US dollar in today’s Asia opening session, forcing the Seoul government to deploy an emergency series of curbs to support the currency. The Japanese Yen also remains deeply pinned, trading weakly at 160.30 per US dollar, keeping Bank of Japan intervention flags fully raised.
- Trade sentiment frozen: Early regional performance is further muted by traders waiting on major Chinese trade balance data later this week, as regional supply chains undergo structural realignment and linger amid lingering tariff anxieties.
Top 2 Events to Watch Today
- New York Fed 1-YR Inflation Expectations (May) – 11.00 pm SGT
Impact: USD, US Treasuries, US stock indices - US-Iran peace talks/ceasefire developments
Impact: All asset classes
