[MARKET UPDATE] Asia-Pac stocks begin higher and US equity futures attempt to rebound overnight despite the hawkish FOMC where the Fed hiked rates and dot plots pencilled in another hike this year

Asia-Pac stocks begin higher and US equity futures attempt to rebound overnight despite the hawkish FOMC where the Fed hiked rates and dot plots pencilled in another hike this year.

A hawkish hike paired with a dot plot retaining another increase fits a well-worn pattern: the initial move is typically a bear-flattening of the front end and dollar support, followed by an equity wobble whose durability depends on whether the session treats the hike itself or the dots as the surprise. Post-FOMC rebounds in futures overnight are a familiar sequence in past cycles, as the initial statement-driven repricing gives way to a second read once positioning and the press conference nuance are digested; Asia taking its cue higher reflects that hand-off rather than a verdict on the policy path. The operative distinction is between a higher terminal rate and higher-for-longer: the dots signalling one more hike moves the front end, while guidance on the hold duration drives the belly and the dollar's persistence. The questions that have mattered in comparable episodes are how much of the dot shift was already discounted, and whether the chair framed the remaining hike as data-contingent or committed. Follow-ons are the behaviour of the two-year and the dollar against the low-yielders, the response from regional central banks whose differentials just widened, and the first batch of Fed speakers to either endorse or soften the hawkish framing. As an overnight market update rather than fresh policy information, the signal is about digestion, not direction.