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February 23, 2026 – 23:27

(Bloomberg) — Most Asian shares were set for early declines Tuesday after fresh anxiety over the impact of artificial intelligence on company profits lashed Wall Street. Treasuries and gold rallied, while Bitcoin slumped.

Equity index futures for Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong fell, along with those for mainland China which reopens after the Lunar New Year holiday period. Contracts for Australia edged higher, suggesting its bourse’s lack of technology stocks relative to peers offered a buffer from the selling pressure.

The S&P 500 slid 1% Monday, with tech, delivery and payment shares hit as Citrini Research laid out the potential AI risks to various industries. International Business Machines Corp. tumbled 13% in its worst day since October 2000 as Anthropic said its Claude Code can help modernize COBOL, a programming language mainly run on IBM computers.

Rising concerns over the impact of AI disruption is prompting traders to dump shares of any company seen at the slightest risk of being displaced. Those worries have also grown despite solid results from megacaps amid doubts over whether big investments in the technology will pay off soon.

“The software selloff is a reminder of what can happen when momentum-driven sectors shift into reverse,” said Steve Sosnick at Interactive Brokers. “The broader, more important question is: How many sectors can go into reverse before they drag the broader market along with them?”

The US 10-year yield fell five basis points to 4.03%, while the two-year dropped four basis points to around 3.44%. The dollar inched higher as haven currencies outperformed and gold rose more than 2% to around $5,227 per ounce in a sign of defensive positioning. Bitcoin traded below $65,000.

Questions over US tariffs added to the downbeat mood. After the Supreme Court’s decision Friday to nix President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, the White House announced plans to replace the prior levies with a new, across-the-board 15% tariff on US imports. The European Union froze ratification of its US trade deal amid the uncertainty.

“The push and pull with tariffs is likely to be a distracting theme for markets for the remainder of the year, albeit with less volatility than the initial shock last April,” said Michael Landsberg at Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth Management.

In corporate news, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it expects to earn more from net interest income this year than it had anticipated just last month, and Paramount Skydance Corp. raised its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

In Asia, data set for release Tuesday includes China one-year and five-year loan prime rates. Key events this week include Trump’s State of the Union address later Tuesday, Nvidia Corp.’s results Wednesday and a Friday reading on producer prices. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said his March rate call will hinge on jobs data.

“Given the various economic risks and uncertainties that can be linked to the tariff drama, we expect the Fed’s wait-and-see approach to be reinforced,” said Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets.

In commodities, oil fluctuated with US-Iran talks set to resume this week against a backdrop of massed American forces in the Middle East. Copper faced pressure as traders gauged demand for the metal in China given US tariff uncertainty.

Corporate Highlights:

Anthropic PBC Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei will meet with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday, according to a senior Pentagon official, as contract talks with the artificial intelligence startup remain deadlocked over the company’s insistence on guardrails for use of its technology. Anthropic said three leading artificial intelligence developers in China worked to “illicitly extract” results from its AI models to bolster the capabilities of rival products. PayPal Holdings Inc., the digital payments pioneer, is attracting takeover interest from potential buyers after a stock slide wiped out almost half of its value, according to people familiar with the matter. Abbott Laboratories is selling $20 billion of bonds to help fund its acquisition of cancer-screening company Exact Sciences Corp., one of the US high-grade market’s biggest offerings this year. Gilead Sciences Inc. agreed to buy US cancer-focused biotech Arcellx Inc. for as much as $7.8 billion as it seeks to boost its drug pipeline. Merck & Co. is splitting its main pharmaceutical unit in two in an effort to better highlight the parts of the business that are growing, as it stares down a patent cliff for its best-selling cancer drug Keytruda. Novo Nordisk A/S’s next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema isn’t even on the market yet, but the company’s chief executive officer is already batting back suggestions that the drug is obsolete following the release of disappointing trial results. Domino’s Pizza Inc. reported a larger-than-expected rise in comparable sales, as consumers were drawn to the pizza chain’s budget-friendly pies. Chevron Corp. emerged as the front-runner to take control of Iraq’s second-largest oil complex from Russian producer Lukoil PJSC after signing a deal to engage in exclusive talks over the giant field. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

Nikkei 225 futures fell 0.2% as at 7:18 a.m. Tokyo time Hang Seng futures fell 0.7% S&P/ASX 200 futures rose 0.3% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1786 The Japanese yen was little changed at 154.64 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.8896 per dollar Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin rose 0.5% to $64,892.82 Ether rose 0.2% to $1,866.4 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined five basis points to 4.03% Australia’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 4.69% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.3% to $66.30 a barrel on Monday Spot gold rose 2.4% to $5,228.66 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

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