Markets
The 7am Briefing: Seoul Halts Trading as Jobs Data Looms
Asia's chip rout, a Nasdaq futures bounce, Airbnb's jump and what to watch in payrolls.
HedgeWeekly Video & Briefing Desk ·
Top line: Japan's Nikkei just had its worst day since April 2025, and Seoul had to halt trading as the AI chip sell-off went global. Nasdaq futures are bouncing, but the October jobs report lands at 8:30 a.m. Here is your four-minute read before the open.
Before the bell (US futures as of 4:14 a.m. ET): S&P 500 futures +0.39% · Nasdaq 100 +1.48% · Dow −0.66%. 10-year Treasury about 4.84% · 2-year about 4.46%. WTI crude −1.26% to about $89.38 · Brent −0.7%, just below $100. Gold −0.78% to about $4,082 · Dollar index +0.46% to 101.89. Bitcoin −5.14% to about $76,065 over 24 hours.
Markets and macro: 1. Asia took the AI hit overnight. South Korea's Kospi fell as much as 8.8%, which triggered a 20-minute circuit breaker, a pause meant to calm panic selling. It closed down about 6%. Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 6.14% to 57,328, its biggest one-day drop since April 2025. Taiwan's index fell about 4.5% and entered a bear market, a fall of 20% from its peak. Korean authorities waived a margin-loan collateral rule to slow forced selling, Tickmill reported.
Markets and macro: 2. Wall Street's worst day in 19 months. The S&P 500 fell 4.36% on Thursday and the Nasdaq Composite lost 5.52%, putting it in a correction, a 10% fall from its peak. The Philadelphia chip index dropped about 12%. Reuters said the sell-off erased nearly $3 trillion of S&P 500 value. Investors cited tighter AI rules under a Democratic Congress and slower data-centre spending. Chip shares are recovering part of the loss before the bell.
Markets and macro: 3. Bonds rallied and hike bets cooled. The 2-year Treasury yield fell more than 11 basis points on Thursday to about 4.46%, its lowest in nearly two months, Saxo said. Futures now price about a 70% chance of a December Fed hike, down from about 83% on Wednesday. Investing.com's calendar shows 65,000 jobs expected for October, after 29,000 in September. The unemployment rate is forecast to hold at 4.2%.
Markets and macro: Also overnight: Europe's STOXX 600 fell 1% by 4:19 a.m. ET, with Teleperformance down 18% after cutting its revenue outlook. Brent is heading for a weekly fall of about 12%, The National reported, despite more tanker attacks near Hormuz.
Hedge fund moves: October split the big funds wide apart. Singapore's Quantedge gained 7.2% last month, taking its 2026 return to 60%, according to figures from a Bloomberg report. Citadel's Wellington fund rose 1.7% and is up 15.3% this year. Most peers lost money: Millennium's flagship fell 2.3% and ExodusPoint 2.4%. Walleye Capital lost 5.9%, its worst month since March 2020, and is cutting much of its stock-picking team, Hedgeweek reported.
Hedge fund moves: Marshall Wace's Eureka lost 5.4%. The London firm's flagship multi-strategy fund is now up 5.3% for 2026, the Financial Times reported, as relayed by Hedgeweek. Its systematic Tops fund fell 3.6%. Graham Capital's quant macro fund posted only a marginal loss and is up 21.6% this year. PivotalPath put the average October loss for hedge funds at about 3%. Thursday's chip rout means November has started under pressure too.
Earnings to watch: Airbnb earned $3.16 a share against $2.85 expected, on revenue of $4.87 billion against $4.75 billion. It raised its full-year growth outlook, and the shares were up about 11% premarket. Atlassian grew revenue 24% to $1.77 billion, but guided full-year growth to about 13.75%. The shares were down about 16% premarket. Moderna reports before the open. Analysts expect a loss of about $1.10 a share on revenue of $890 million, TipRanks said. Also before the open: Enbridge, Vistra and Oklo. Hawaiian Electric reports after the close.
HedgeWeekly Stockwatch: ABNB Airbnb: revenue and profit beat forecasts, fourth-quarter guidance topped estimates and the board added $12 billion of buybacks. TEAM Atlassian: cloud revenue grew 31%, but Data Center revenue is guided to shrink about 16% this year. NVDA Nvidia: up about 3.6% premarket after its biggest one-day fall since January 2025. MU Micron: fell 17% on Thursday and is among the chip names rebounding before the bell.
Today's calendar (ET): Before the open: Moderna, Enbridge and Vistra results. 8:30 a.m.: October jobs report. Payrolls forecast 65,000 (prior 29,000), unemployment 4.2% (prior 4.2%), hourly earnings +0.3% (prior +0.1%). 10:00 a.m.: University of Michigan consumer sentiment, forecast 47.8 (prior 48.0). 3:00 p.m.: Consumer credit, forecast $12.0 billion (prior $8.28 billion). Fed: Christopher Waller and John Williams are due to speak, Tickmill said.
Number of the day: 11 basis points. That is how far the 2-year Treasury yield fell on Thursday, to about 4.46%, according to Saxo. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point. The 2-year tracks Fed expectations closely, so the drop shows traders trimming bets on a December hike as stocks fell.
One thing to watch: The jobs report arrives with the Nasdaq in a correction and hike odds already falling. A weak number could ease rate fears but deepen growth worries. The question is whether the chip bounce in futures survives the first hour of trading.
Sources
- Reuters via Investing.com
- Investing.com
- Yahoo Finance
- Saxo
- Tickmill
- NordFX
- Gulf News
- IC Markets
- The National
- TipRanks
- Hedgeweek (citing Bloomberg and the Financial Times)
- Seoul Economic Daily
- Airbnb SEC filing
- Atlassian SEC filing