[MARKET ANALYSIS] Asia-Pac stocks are mostly higher after last Friday's NFP miss unwound Fed rate hike bets, while the region also digests earnings and soft Chinese inflation data

APAC Stocks: Positive

• Asia-Pac stocks are somewhat mixed, but with most major indices in the green, following last Friday's gains on Wall St, where weak jobs data unwound Fed rate hike bets, while oil prices gained in the absence of a formal Strait of Hormuz deal, and participants also digest soft Chinese inflation data.

ASX 200: -0.5%

• Index is lower amid declines in the top-weighted financial sector following earnings from Westpac, while participants also look ahead to tomorrow's RBA rate decision, with the central bank widely expected to keep rates on hold, but continue to echo a hawkish tone.

Nikkei 225: +1.9%

• Rallied as participants digested the recent slew of earnings, with the top gainers in the index all driven by their quarterly earnings results.

KOSPI +0.7%

• Trades higher but with upside capped amid the somewhat choppy price action in tech heavyweights and as participants also reflect on earnings releases.

Hang Seng & Shanghai Comp: Hang Seng +0.6% / Shanghai Comp +0.3%

• Chinese markets are in the green but with gains in the mainland contained following softer-than-expected CPI and PPI data over the weekend, which is seen to keep prospects of a rate cut in H2 on the table, while the PBoC said on Sunday that it will continue to implement a moderately loose monetary policy in H2, strengthen counter-cyclical adjustment, and take solid steps to promote sustained and improved economic development.

US Equity Futures: Rangebound

• Price action is rangebound following the recent NFP data and unwinding of Fed rate hike bets, while markets continue to await a formalised Oman-Iran deal on the Strait of Hormuz.

European Equity Futures -0.1%

• Indicate a slightly lower cash market open with Euro Stoxx 50 futures down 0.1% after the cash market closed with gains of 0.3% on Friday.

This is a session recap rather than a discrete event, and the threads within it follow familiar patterns. A payrolls miss that unwinds tightening bets has historically been a reliable tailwind for Asia-Pac equity beta at the Monday open, with the transmission running through lower US front-end yields and a softer dollar rather than through any regional fundamental. The Australian leg is the more idiosyncratic story: index-level weakness concentrated in top-weighted financials around a major bank's earnings is a standard pattern, and pre-decision drift into a central bank meeting where a hold is consensus but the language is contested tends to suppress risk-taking in the rate-sensitive sectors specifically. Soft Chinese CPI and PPI prints of this kind have, in past episodes, cut both ways: weak for demand optics, supportive for the easing case, and mainland indices have typically responded more to the policy read-through than to the data itself when authorities pair the release with easing-commitment language. The earnings-driven dispersion in Tokyo and Seoul, where index gains rest on a handful of quarterly reporters, is the usual mid-season texture and tends to fade as a driver once the season matures. What is worth watching is whether the repricing of the Fed path holds into the next US data, the tone of the upcoming Australian rate decision relative to its recent hawkish framing, and any follow-through on Chinese easing rhetoric.