Tech Had a Bad Week. That's Normal.

The Big Story: Tech Had a Bad Week. That’s Normal.

The Nasdaq fell for five straight sessions. The S&P 500 slipped below its 50-day moving average for the first time since April. Chipmakers led the drop. The Nikkei fell 4.15% in a single session.

This happens. Pullbacks of 5 to 10 percent in equity markets occur several times a year, and tech selloffs driven by a single narrative losing steam are among the more common. The trigger here was rising scepticism about AI infrastructure spending and an NYT report that OpenAI may delay its IPO. Names most exposed to that narrative fell hard. The broader market barely moved.

The risk for expats in senior tech roles is that the exposure spans multiple accounts: company shares, investment portfolio, pension savings, all loaded with the same handful of US names. Different labels, one underlying bet.

A broadly diversified portfolio covering global equities, bonds, and real assets would have had a quiet week. Good structure contains damage. A bad week in one sector stays there.

What Else Is Moving

Iran: weekend escalation, then a stand-down. On Saturday 27 June the US struck Iranian coastal sites after an Iranian drone hit a cargo vessel in Hormuz. Iran responded Sunday with ballistic missiles and drones aimed at US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. By Sunday evening both sides agreed to halt and meet in Doha on Tuesday 30 June. Brent held at around $72 and Hormuz flows continued throughout. The strikes hit military sites rather than oil infrastructure, and the market priced accordingly.

Why cheap oil probably will not cool inflation. Brent near a four-month low looks like relief on inflation. Two reasons that read is probably wrong. Around 30 percent of global fertilizer exports move through Hormuz. When the strait was disrupted in March and April, those shipments stopped during the spring planting window; urea prices rose 20 to 60 percent. Fertilizer shortages at planting translate into lower crop yields and higher food prices months later, with the price transmission still coming. The weekend’s military exchange also reversed the oil slide, at least temporarily. A second inflation leg, energy reflation plus a delayed food shock, is the more likely H2 scenario. The Fed’s June dot plot already reflected this: 9 of 18 members project a hike, the median 2026 rate forecast is 3.8 percent, and no cut is priced for this year.

Oil at a four-month low: different news by location. Brent at around $72 lands differently depending on where you are. Gulf executives whose income tracks the oil price are looking at a sustained sub-$75 environment that constrains employer margins and, eventually, compensation. Clients in Thailand and Singapore, as net importers, see the reverse: lower fuel costs feed through to household budgets over weeks. GBP/THB near 44.0 reflects that relative calm. The same barrel, two readings.

MYR at its strongest since November. The ringgit moved to around 4.09 against the dollar as the AI narrative wobbled and the dollar eased. GBP/MYR near 5.46, EUR/MYR near 4.65. For European expats sending money to Malaysia or receiving MYR salary, this is a genuine window. Multi-month highs in your favour tend to pass without notice until they reverse.

The Expat Takeaway

The portfolios that came through last week without meaningful damage were built before the week started: diversified across asset class, sector, and geography, with no single narrative accounting for most of the return.

Three questions worth sitting with.

First: if your company shares, your investment portfolio, and your pension savings all have heavy exposure to the same handful of US tech names, are you holding three separate pots of wealth or one bet spread across three accounts?

Second: does your investment structure distinguish between what your employer already pays you to believe (that the tech sector performs) and what you actually need your savings to do over a 15-year horizon?

Third: does your portfolio reflect rates staying higher for longer, or was it built for cuts that stopped being plausible several months ago?

If nothing above reveals a gap, last week was a week to watch. If something does, the issue predates this week.