AI investment panic triggers US stock selloff, Asia-Pacific markets fall

On November 6, 2026, The Guardian opened rolling coverage of a selloff that began on Wall Street. The Financial Times calculated, based on FactSet data, that index values dropped by about $3.2tn on the S&P Composite 1500, a broad basket of America's publicly traded companies. That was the largest single-day decline since the turn of the millennium, and the session was described as one of "chaotic trading".

The coverage attributes the rout to fear that the Democratic Party's blue wave in this week's midterm election would hit the AI investment boom. Investors were said to be unwinding positions, with one quote noting that clients had been long index and in individual stocks before the drop. In the same session, losses spread to Asia-Pacific markets: Japan's Nikkei fell about 6%, South Korea's KOSPI dropped 6.7%, and Taiwan's TAIEX slid 4.5%.

The report sits at that stage of the day, with Asia-Pacific markets following Wall Street downward. Note that the phrase "AI investment panic" does not appear in the readable body of the piece; the visible text mentions the midterm-election blue wave, the AI investment boom, and forced exits from clients' existing long positions. The Guardian article is a rolling-coverage piece, so the narrative may develop further.