Sydney, June 19, 2026, 07:06 AEST
- WiseTech shares finished Thursday at A$37.00, off 3.39% from the day before.
- CargoWise users saw a global outage on June 17 that lasted about two hours, hitting system access and electronic messaging, customers said.
- Nasdaq climbed roughly 1.9% overnight, giving Australian software stocks a stronger lead into Friday’s session.
WiseTech Global will be in focus at Friday’s open. The logistics software stock slid 3.4% on Thursday as tech shares dropped and its CargoWise platform faced another reliability problem. The outage wasn’t tied to the selloff, but it adds another concern for investors.
Timing is critical here. CargoWise runs a broad set of supply-chain and freight tasks, not just a side tool. Short outages can force customers to switch to manual processing for transactions and workflows.
WiseTech said some users couldn’t access CargoWise after disruption started around 3 p.m. Sydney time on June 17. Full access was back from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. when WiseTech rolled back a data update. The company has not said how many customers were affected. Anton Gunter, managing director of British forwarder Global Freight Services, said support “can be better if not quicker,” but his company has always been able to get help. The Loadstar
Sydney stocks sold off Thursday as investors braced for a bigger valuation hit. The S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.62% to 8,911.1, led down by a 1.36% slide in the tech sector. Xero lost 3.9%. SiteMinder was off 3.1%. WiseTech fell 3.4%. Software names are often priced as “long-duration” bets, with a lot of their value tied up in future profits that can get hit hard when rates move. Market Index
Stocks fell after a hawkish Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed left its policy rate at 3.50%-3.75%. Nine of 19 officials now expect another hike by late 2026. The central bank raised its year-end inflation estimate to 3.6% from 2.7%. Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, called the tweaks to the Fed’s statement “profound.” Reuters
Overseas stocks bounced back overnight, with the Nasdaq up 1.9% and the S&P 500 adding 1.1% as Treasury yields dipped. Most of Wednesday’s losses were reversed. Australian tech might get some support from that, but there are still doubts around CargoWise. U.S. markets are shut Friday for Juneteenth.
WiseTech kept its big growth target after posting February results. The company logged first-half revenue of US$672 million and underlying net profit of US$114.5 million. It stuck to its forecast for fiscal 2026, calling for revenue between US$1.39 billion and US$1.44 billion and EBITDA of US$550 million to US$585 million. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.
That forecast comes as WiseTech pushes ahead with a two-year AI overhaul that will cut about 2,000 jobs, or 29% of its staff. The move hits product development and customer service teams. Chief Executive Zubin Appoo told investors in February, “the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over.” Around that time, Marc Jocum, senior investment strategist at Global X ETFs, described the stock’s recent weakness as “more governance-driven than fundamental.” Reuters
But the risk has grown. Repeated outages or delays in support could hit trust as WiseTech restructures teams for products and customer service. DSV, one of the world’s largest freight forwarders, also says it will shift its Air & Sea operations off CargoWise to its own Tango system. Higher bond yields would add more pressure by cutting the value investors assign to WiseTech’s future earnings.
ASX was still in pre-open at the dateline, with regular trading set to start around 9:59:45 a.m. in Sydney. The early focus is on WiseTech and whether shares can hold near A$37. Investors are looking at gains from Wall Street while trying to gauge if the CargoWise issue goes beyond a contained software problem.
