Asia Stocks Fall as Wall Street Waits for the Midterms — and Apple Slides After Hours on a Softer Holiday Forecast
MSCI's Asia-Pacific index fell 0.9 percent and Korean shares dropped as much as 3.8 percent as voting approached, S&P futures inched up 0.1 percent, the 10-year yield rose to 4.913 percent — and Apple fell 2.8 percent after hours after guiding holiday-quarter margins lower on memory-chip costs.
The world's markets spent the night before the midterms doing what Wall Street did all day Monday: waiting, nervously. Stocks edged lower at the start of Asian trade on Tuesday and oil prices stabilised after the previous session's tumble, with investors on edge ahead of the start of voting in the US midterm elections, Reuters reported. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.9 percent, led by a decline of as much as 3.8 percent in Korean shares, while S&P 500 e-mini futures edged up 0.1 percent and Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.
"Tuesday will be nothing more than the day ahead of a much bigger day," ING analysts wrote in a note cited by Reuters, adding that by tomorrow the market will have guidance on the midterm implications and the Treasury's quarterly refunding announcement. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury bond was up 2.1 basis points at 4.913 percent. Overnight, stocks on Wall Street had edged lower, with the S&P 500 slipping 0.5 percent as technology earnings weighed on confidence, even as data showed US manufacturing activity picked up in October amid strong domestic demand.
The night's sharpest single-stock move belonged to the company whose earnings had steadied Monday's close file. Apple shares extended their losses, falling 2.8 percent in after-hours trading after the iPhone maker forecast lower gross margins for the crucial holiday quarter, citing rising memory-chip costs, and projected services revenue growth that fell well short of Wall Street expectations — the guidance detail that Monday's record $114.5 billion print (SQ-20261102-056) had not yet priced.
On the election itself, the wire carried the same picture this desk's prediction-market file reported Monday afternoon, a few points softer: opinion polls favor the Democrats to win the House while the Senate remains too close to call, and Polymarket and Kalshi currently assign around 75 percent probability that the Democrats will control the Senate, with roughly 70 percent on a sweep. MUFG analysts, quoted by Reuters, cautioned that Brazil's election surprise is a reminder prediction markets can misprice political tail risks.
Oil, Monday's biggest mover, went quiet: Brent crude was last 0.1 percent lower at $104.72 as investors weighed the state of peace talks between the US and Iran — talks that had knocked more than 7 percent off crude on Monday — against a Wall Street Journal report, cited by Reuters, that the US military struck Iran's Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. The dollar index edged up 0.1 percent to 101.81 and Bitcoin crawled 0.5 percent higher to $77,112.18. What the night markets are really trading is Tuesday: the vote, and then the refunding announcement, are the two events that end the waiting.
