Hot U.S. Inflation Sparks Tech and Crypto Rout, Sending Jakarta Composite Below 5,900

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — Searing U.S. inflation data and a sharp tech-led sell-off on Wall Street triggered a swift wave of risk-off selling across global markets on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, pulling the Jakarta Composite Index (IHSG) decisively below the psychological 5,900 threshold.

Within just 30 minutes of the opening bell on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI), the benchmark index sank more than 70 points, or 1.15%, to trade at 5,873. The domestic downturn erased the previous session's modest technical rebound of 0.29% to 5,943, when foreign institutions had offloaded a net Rp 1.13 trillion in local shares.

Resurgent price pressures in the United States threaten to keep global borrowing costs higher for even longer, directly dismantling market hopes for monetary easing and strengthening the greenback against emerging-market currencies. For developing bourses like Indonesia, the combination of stubborn energy inflation, rising sovereign yields, and sharp tech-sector repricing quickly dries up institutional liquidity, forcing broad asset liquidations across traditional equities and speculative digital assets alike.

The global retreat was catalyzed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reported on Wednesday that the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) climbed 0.6% month-on-month and 3.7% year-on-year in September, exceeding consensus expectations of 3.6%.

Core Inflation Accelerates

Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy components, accelerated to 0.3% sequentially and 2.6% annualized, also running hotter than projected. Soaring energy bills served as the primary inflation engine, with retail gasoline surging 9.1% month-on-month and fuel oil jumping 74.2% year-on-year against a backdrop of prolonged Middle Eastern geopolitical conflict.

The hotter print rattled fixed-income markets, pushing odds of an additional Federal Reserve rate hike before year-end above 96% and sending U.S. sovereign yields sharply higher.

The inflation shock triggered immediate liquidations on Wall Street during Wednesday's trading session. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the slide, sinking 1.88% to 26,692.87, while the benchmark S&P 500 lost 1.11% to finish at 7,718.94.

Technology shares bore the heaviest losses as investors reassessed the aggressive debt financing utilized across the artificial intelligence ecosystem. Shares of AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave plummeted more than 15%, Oracle slumped nearly 9%, and semiconductor heavyweights Advanced Micro Devices and SanDisk both retreated over 5%.

Alternative asset classes offered no shelter from the rate shock. Bitcoin slid below the $82,000 baseline to trade around $81,702, down 1.98% over a 24-hour window, as the broader cryptocurrency market capitalization contracted 1.91% to $2.74 trillion. Digital asset sentiment had already softened following net weekly outflows of $681 million from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs between Oct. 5 and Oct. 9, which snapped a three-week streak of institutional inflows.

Asia Bourses Wrecked

The transatlantic risk aversion spilled directly into Asian trading floors on Thursday morning. Japan’s Nikkei plunged more than 3,255 points, South Korea's Kospi logged steep declines, and Singapore’s Straits Times Index shed more than 55 points.

In Jakarta, currency depreciation and the external macro shock triggered synchronized selling across every corner of the exchange. All 11 sectoral indices tumbled into the red, led by basic materials and energy shares, which both dropped by more than 2%. Transportation, property, technology, consumer goods, and infrastructure sectors each surrendered over 1%.

Heavyweight conglomerate counters and tier-one banking institutions applied the heaviest downward pressure on the Jakarta index, with Dian Swastatika Sentosa, Adaro Andalan Indonesia, Bayan Resources, Pantai Indah Kapuk Dua, Bank Central Asia, and Bank Rakyat Indonesia declining sharply. High-profile group counters including Barito Renewables Energy, Chandra Asri Pacific, and Barito Pacific also registered notable losses.

Defying the wider market collapse, sharp speculative buying triggered the exchange's upper auto-rejection limit across four low-priced counters, including Bank Of India Indonesia, Pioneerindo Gourmet International, Trias Sentosa, and Alkindo Naratama, each advancing approximately 24% to 25%.