[MARKET ANALYSIS] Asia-Pac stocks are mostly in the green amid tech uplift and after inline US CPI data unwound September Fed rate hike bets
APAC Stocks: Mostly higher
- Asia-Pac are predominantly in the green as the region takes its cue from the mild positive handover from Wall St, where equities were underpinned by earnings, and September rate hike bets were unwound after in-line CPI data.
ASX 200: -0.5%
- Bucked the overnight trend as participants digested earnings releases, with RBA Assistant Governor Kent sticking to the hawkish-leaning script in which he noted the possibility of rates increasing further if risks materialise, but acknowledged evidence suggests that monetary policy in Australia is somewhat restrictive, and that the tightening earlier this year is working.
Nikkei 225: +1.8%
- Rallied amid the tech-related momentum and following softer-than-expected PPI data for Japan.
KOSPI +4.0%
- Outperforms with the revival in semiconductor strength lifting the index into a technical bull market.
Hang Seng & Shanghai Comp: Hang Seng -0.1% / Shanghai Comp +0.4%
- Chinese markets are mixed, with sentiment dampened in Hong Kong as participants reflect on earnings, including mixed results from Tencent, while gains in the mainland are contained after the PBoC reiterated the pledge to boost the counter-cyclical adjustment, expand domestic demand, deepen financial reform and high-level opening, and continue to implement moderately loose monetary policy. However, the central bank continued to refrain from 7-day reverse repo operations for the third consecutive day.
US Equity Futures: Rangebound
- Price action is rangebound overnight as participants await the next market catalysts.
European Equity Futures +0.4%
- Indicate a positive cash market open with Euro Stoxx 50 futures up 0.4% after the cash market closed with losses of 0.3% on Wednesday.
Session wraps of this kind are a recap rather than a catalyst; the tradable information is in the divergences they flag, not the green screen itself. The pattern here is a familiar one: an in-line US inflation print unwinds hike pricing at the front of the US curve, and the transmission runs through the rate-sensitive growth complex, with semis and tech the usual first beneficiaries in the region, Korea the high-beta expression of that move. The more instructive splits are the idiosyncratic ones: Australian equities underperforming against the regional tide is the standard signature when local policy commentary leans against the global easing impulse, and the distinction between an assistant governor restating conditional hawkishness and an actual shift in the board's reaction function is what separates a one-session drag from a repricing of the local curve. Japan's outperformance on soft producer prices follows the established pattern in which wholesale disinflation feeds expectations about the durability of accommodative settings, a read-through that historically shows up in the yen before it shows up in equities. On the mainland side, reiterated counter-cyclical pledges paired with a continued pause in 7-day reverse repo operations is a combination that has recurred often: the rhetoric of moderately loose policy against the absence of liquidity injection, with the gap between the two typically what constrains the onshore bid. The follow-ons worth noting are whether the semiconductor bid holds into the US session and whether the repo pause extends, since sustained absence of open-market operations has tended to tighten money-market conditions regardless of the accompanying language.