Asia open: Trump’s Iran strike threat and tech rout spark stagflation
Equities: The S&P 500 lost 1.6%, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 declined 2% as hardware and semiconductor names underperformed, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.9% amid weakness in consumer retail and logistics. In Europe, the STOXX 600 retreated amid concerns about industrial vulnerabilities.
In today’s Asia opening session, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 E-mini futures staged a relief bounce of 0.2% and 0.4% respectively after US Central Command declared that military strikes on Iranian targets have been “completed’.
Fixed Income: Sovereign bonds posted modest losses as safe-haven bids failed to fully offset hawkish rate-hike fears. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note advanced 4 basis points to settle near 4.55%. Internationally, Germany’s 10-year Bund yield advanced 3 basis points to 3.08%, and the UK’s 10-year Gilt yield climbed 3 basis points to 4.95%.
FX: The US Dollar Index traded almost unchanged on Wednesday as market participants await the ECB’s new monetary policy guidance today after fully pricing in a 25 bps hike for today’s policy meeting. The euro traded flat at 1.1535, and the British pound rested virtually unchanged at $1.3368.
The Japanese yen inched up by 0.1%, hovering around 160.50 per dollar, just a whisker below the 30 April 2026 high of 160.73 that triggered intervention from Japanese authorities. The worst performer was the risk-sensitive AUD, which fell 0.4% to a 2-month low of 0.7000 per dollar.
Commodities: Energy-dominated resource complexes, with WTI crude jumping 3.5% to settle at $91.84/bbl on Trump’s geopolitical remarks. Conversely, spot gold collapsed 4.4% to trade at $4,072/oz as non-yielding safe-havens buckled under the higher-for-longer assumption of global sovereign yields.
