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Asia markets prepare for sales after Wall Street tech crash

The Asian markets are expected to fall Monday as Wall Street's nine week winning streak in tech sales ends. Meanwhile, the Israeli strikes on Beirut have sent oil and dollar prices higher.

Futures and the U.S. exchange-traded funds' moves on Friday pointed to sharp drops in Japan and South Korea. S&P 500 futures fell 0.2% early in Asia.

After a strong jobs report, which raised expectations of Federal Reserve rate hikes, the Nasdaq fell 4.2%, with most selling concentrated on semiconductor stocks. This put a halt to what had been an exciting?AI-led rise.

The yield on the two-year Treasury rose by more than 11 basis point on Friday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury futures were down about five ticks on Monday morning.

Bob Savage is the head of BNY's markets macro strategy. He said that "the AI-drives everything narrative frayed in the last week."

The key question is whether this is a healthy break in the nine week equity rally, or a top. The IPO focus of SpaceX and Anthropic 'is part of the pause - to make space for the new market capital or to rethink the value."

This week, the biggest news is likely to be the SpaceX listing. It's expected that it will price on Thursday, and then trade on Friday. But, inflation will also be a major topic, with U.S. consumer prices due on Wednesday, and central bank meetings taking place in Canada and Europe.

Bitcoin dropped by 16% last week, its biggest weekly decline since the collapse in 2022 of the crypto exchange FTX. It was hovering around $63,000 on Sunday.

Brokers are worried that SpaceX's IPO could cause other assets to fall in value.

The Mideast situation remains fragile, and Brent crude futures rose 2.6% on Monday to $95.45 per barrel after an Israeli strike on Beirut led?Iran? to fire a salvo? of missiles? at Israeli targets.

OPEC+ has agreed to a fourth increase in oil production targets in just a few months.

The dollar held firm above 160 yen in the currency market and the Australian dollar rose to $0.7038. The euro was hovering at $1.1518.

(source: Reuters)