ASX futures fall 0.6% as US tech selloff hits market

Australian sharemarket futures are pointing downward following a severe technology sell-off on Wall Street, which has rippled through global equity markets according to The Australian Financial Review. Investors are reassessing risk following political shifts and heightened scrutiny surrounding artificial intelligence infrastructure.

According to The Australian Financial Review, S&P/ASX 200 futures dropped during early trading hours, reflecting widespread risk aversion originating in overseas markets. The Australian sharemarket is set to fall modestly at the open on Friday morning, with futures down just 0.6 per cent despite the most brutal sell-off on Wall Street since “liberation day” in April 2025 as investors aggressively dumped technology stocks. S&P/ASX 200 futures were down 66 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 9012 near 7.50am (AEDT) with just over an hour of trading still to go in New York.

The downturn coincides with broader macroeconomic adjustments, as highlighted in Decifer Trading, which noted that domestic futures have previously felt the strain of central bank policy stances and international equity corrections. The Reserve Bank of Australia's policy decision and an overnight selloff in US technology stocks pushed Australian futures lower, wiping roughly 500 billion dollars from market value. The same force hit Wall Street, where the S&P 500 fell 1.8 percent in risk-off trading. At the same time, bond prices rose, sending government yields down 0.8 percent over the past week according to Decifer Trading.

The international sell-off was heavily concentrated in the technology and artificial intelligence sectors. Major US indices experienced steep declines, with technology-heavy benchmarks taking the brunt of the investor retreat. At the time of writing, both the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq were down more than 5 per cent – on track for its worst day since US President Donald Trump announced his sweeping tariffs last year that triggered fears of a global recession, as reported by The Australian Financial Review.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index – the bellwether for the artificial intelligence chip trade – plunged more than 10 per cent, while Wall Street’s fear gauge that measures volatility – the VIX – topped 26, surging the most in almost two years. Specifically, the carnage came just one day after the US midterm elections in which the Democrats made a clean sweep of Congress, with investors starting to weigh the prospect of more heavy-handed regulation on the AI build-out that has helped drive the equity market’s four-year bull market.

The US tech selloff, driven by hawkish signals from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, spread that pressure globally. When fund managers see the biggest market in the world repricing risk, they pull back from smaller markets all at once, amplifying the move, a dynamic explored further within Decifer Trading.

Defence stocks outperformed the broad market by 4.3 percent this week, suggesting money is rotating rather than fleeing entirely. The market is still technically in an uptrend, and strategists are betting the 'Fed put' is back, meaning the central bank would step in before a deep crash. Today's move may be a sharp but temporary reset within a larger rally.