The S&P 500 closed Monday down 0.48% at 7,619.98, the Dow fell 0.29% to 52,421.20 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.56% to 26,186.41, according to Reuters via Investing.com, after the Nasdaq-100 had fallen as much as 1.5% early, per Yahoo Finance. Software offered shelter, with ServiceNow up 7.41%, Adobe up 5.30% and Workday up 4.58%, while Bank of America fell 5.1%, per Reuters, after it said third-quarter investment banking fees would fall more than 10%, according to CNBC. For Tokyo, the shape matters: a mild index decline hid a violent split between chips and software, the same split Monday's Tokyo session already showed.

Markets are pricing a better than 85% chance of a quarter-point Fed increase on Wednesday from the current 3.50%-3.75% range, after August consumer inflation held at 3.4%, according to AFP via Japan Today; core CPI rose 0.3% on the month, above the 0.2% expected, per Yahoo Finance. "The 10-year going above 5% is huge and speaks volumes, and it may pressure the Fed to do more than just one rate hike," Longbow Asset Management's chief executive told Reuters. The 30-year mortgage rate jumped to 7.17%, a nearly 2-year high, according to MarketWatch. The decision lands around 3:00 JST Thursday, a day before the BOJ.

Brent crude settled 1.54% higher at $106.22 a barrel on Monday, according to Reuters via Investing.com, and stood at $106.29 as of 6:00 JST. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West crude pipeline after drone strikes launched from Iraq, removing the main route it had used to move 4 to 5 million barrels a day around the effectively closed Strait of Hormuz, according to Al Jazeera; just 14 vessels passed through Hormuz on Sunday, per NBC News. Prices came off their highs after President Trump posted that Iran "wants to make a deal" and that oil "will drop like a rock" once the conflict ends, according to Cointelegraph. For Tokyo, INPEX (1605) and the trading houses keep their crude support, while airlines, chemicals and utilities keep paying for it.

Iran-aligned Houthi forces seized Perim Island at the entrance to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Friday and declared navigation safe for all shipping except Saudi vessels, according to Nikkei Asia, which reported that Trump declined a Saudi request for direct military intervention, offering intelligence and targeting help instead. With both Hormuz and the Red Sea constrained, Saudi exports from Yanbu are squeezed from both ends, keeping freight and insurance costs high for Japanese shippers such as Nippon Yusen (9101) and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (9104).

South Korea's Kospi fell 3.3% on Monday, erasing the previous week's gains, as SK Hynix lost 6.4% and Samsung Electronics fell 4.1%, according to TradingKey, which also cited rate-hike worries and a firmer yen. Shanghai was little changed and the Hang Seng edged higher, according to Armenpress. Seoul's memory makers sold off before the overnight US chip rout deepened, so Tuesday's Korean session is the first regional read on whether that selling extends — a direct signal for Kioxia and Tokyo's equipment makers.

China releases August industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment on September 15, in a week that also brings Fed, Bank of England and BOJ decisions, according to CoinDesk. The numbers come ahead of President Xi Jinping's visit to the White House this month for a second summit with Trump, according to CSIS. Weak Chinese demand would weigh on Japanese machinery and materials exporters already facing Beijing's anti-dumping deposits on Japanese chip chemicals.

The STOXX 600 fell 0.3% in early Monday trade as European technology shares dropped about 2%, with Soitec down 12.6%, ASM International off 8.7% and ASML lower by 5.2% at the time, according to Eurasia Business News. ECB President Christine Lagarde warned that Europe must build its own AI capacity or risk being cut off by the US or China, according to The Guardian. ASML's slide matters for Tokyo because lithography demand is a leading signal for Tokyo Electron and Lasertec.

Bitcoin stood at $79,192 as of 6:00 JST, rising as calls for an AI slowdown sank Nvidia, Intel and other chip stocks, according to Decrypt. In Washington, the Clarity Act crypto market-structure bill faces a vote on Tuesday after Senator Cynthia Lummis credited Trump for an ethics compromise, according to Bitcoin Magazine. For Tokyo, crypto's resilience is one more sign that Monday's selling stayed concentrated in AI hardware while appetite for risk elsewhere held up.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay early Saturday titled We Must Pace the Frontier, writing that "we must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models," according to CNN. He proposed independent evaluators inside leading labs, federal regulation of the top US AI companies and eventual international coordination, according to NBC News, and OpenAI's Sam Altman replied that "I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier." On Monday, Microsoft published an AI code of conduct barring its models from cyberattacks, deceptive evasion of human oversight and actions that could lead to loss of human control, with CEO Satya Nadella saying "we welcome the research, focus, and deliberate pacing needed to get alignment right," according to TechCrunch. None of the companies has announced capex cuts, but the market is now pricing the possibility of slower training demand — the demand behind Tokyo's AI hardware trade.

President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that "there is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China," and that "the only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT," while attacking Amodei, according to Decrypt. He had earlier dismissed the warnings as coming from "very negative forces," according to Nikkei Asia. Without White House backing, the federal-regulation piece of Amodei's plan has little near-term path, which limits how far the pacing debate can reach into hyperscaler budgets and Japanese equipment orders.

Micron closed Monday down 5.25% and Nvidia down 3.37%, according to Reuters via Investing.com, while Sandisk fell about 5% and Broadcom about 4.8%, based on live quotes at write time. 24/7 Wall St. read the matching drops in Micron and Sandisk as theme-level selling rather than company news, noting that neither Anthropic nor OpenAI has signaled budget changes. The overnight closes extend what Kioxia's 6.4% drop in Tokyo started on Monday, and memory is where the AI-slowdown fear is being priced most aggressively.

CrowdStrike rose about 13.9% and Palo Alto Networks about 13.1% on Monday, based on live quotes at write time, as investors bet AI risk means more security spending, according to 24/7 Wall St.; CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz argued that securing AI matters more than slowing it, according to Benzinga. The rally reached broader software, led by ServiceNow's 7.41% gain, per Reuters via Investing.com. Tokyo's closest parallels are IT-services and security integrators such as NEC (6701) and Trend Micro (4704), which could draw the same rotation bid at the open.

Anthropic has selected Nasdaq for its planned listing, targeting an October debut, and has told investors it expects a second consecutive profitable quarter, according to Quartz via Yahoo Finance. On Monday it launched Claude for Financial Advisors, with connectors to investment analytics and wealth-management tools from BlackRock, Addepar, Schwab and others, according to Yahoo Finance. The contrast with OpenAI's delay is stark, and for Tokyo it underlines that the AI listing SoftBank Group needs most is the one now pushed into 2027.

TDK (6762) will spend roughly $260 million over 3 years across 2 factories to expand production of thin-film inductors, tiny components that cut energy loss in AI servers, according to Nikkei Asia. The bet is on data-center power efficiency, a need that persists whatever the pace of frontier model development.

Fujitsu (6702) plans to export AI semiconductors built on technology from its Fugaku supercomputer to the US and Asia as early as 2027, aiming at demand for inference CPUs, according to Nikkei Asia. Inference is the part of AI demand least exposed to a slowdown in frontier training runs, which positions Fujitsu away from the fault line that hit memory stocks overnight.

Japan's women's national football team beat Thailand 8-0 in its Group E opener at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Monday, with Nakajima scoring a first-half hat trick and Takarada adding another after the break, according to News On Japan. The team is chasing a 3rd straight Asian Games title and 4th overall, on home soil.

Japan beat Iran 3-0 in the final of the Asian Men's Volleyball Championship in Kitakyushu, securing a place at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, after sweeping South Korea 25-13, 25-11, 25-14 in the semifinals, according to News On Japan. The same weekend, Miyu Yamashita won the Japan Women's PGA Championship in a playoff.

The first regular helicopter shuttle between Kansai International Airport and Kyoto, excluding private charters, began flying Tuesday after an inauguration ceremony on Monday, cutting the trip to about 25 minutes against 75 minutes or more by rail or bus, according to News On Japan.

The Gundam Base Shibuya will open in November on the 5th floor of Shibuya Parco, carrying a huge range of Gunpla model kits and merchandise, according to SoraNews24. It shares the building with Nintendo Tokyo and a Pokémon Center. Separately, Bandai Namco (7832) is working with Kao and Lion to recycle used toothbrushes and detergent packaging into plastic for Gundam kits, according to Nikkei Asia.

Mizkan and Dydo will launch canned zosui-style hot pot soups — sesame soy milk, and scallop and clam — at vending machines and stores on October 26 for ¥160 a can, according to SoraNews24. They join a vending lineup that this month also gains Starbucks Japan's first machine, with a vending-exclusive caramel macchiato made with Suntory, per SoraNews24.

The digital art collective teamLab is building a 33,000-square-meter museum in Tokyo's Ariake district next to Odaiba, larger than teamLab Borderless or teamLab Planets, with a plaza, green space and a café, according to SoraNews24. It is scheduled to open in 2032.

The mayors of Iga in Mie Prefecture and Koka in Shiga Prefecture — the 2 historic homes of Japan's ninja clans — have challenged each other to a nighttime ninja battle on October 3 at Yono Park on the prefectural border, and each city is recruiting 50 warriors, according to SoraNews24. Teams fight with foam katana to collect wooden tokens, try to steal the enemy's banner, and must contend with 3 spies planted in their own ranks; entry costs ¥5,000, ninja outfits rent for ¥1,000, and the losing mayor has to make promotional content celebrating the winning city. The grudge dates to the Tensho Iga War of 1581, when Koka's ninja sided with Oda Nobunaga's army against Iga.