[MARKET UPDATE] Asia-Pac stocks begin on the backfoot heading into month-end and after recent hawkish comments from Fed Chair Warsh at Jackson Hole, while the US and Iran resumed strikes for the first time in over a month

Asia-Pac stocks begin on the backfoot heading into month-end and after recent hawkish comments from Fed Chair Warsh at Jackson Hole, while the US and Iran resumed strikes for the first time in over a month.

Sessions framed around month-end tend to carry a thin-liquidity caveat: rebalancing flows can exaggerate moves that the underlying news alone would not justify, so the read-through into the new month matters more than the overnight tape itself. On the Fed angle, hawkish rhetoric from a chair at the Jackson Hole podium has historically functioned as a signal about the centre of the committee rather than one voice, and the tell in past episodes has been whether the front end takes the cue and holds it through the following week's data, or fades it as positioning talk. The US-Iran resumption follows the established pattern for this conflict: first strikes reprice crude through freight, insurance and the prompt spread rather than outright flat price, with the durability of the risk premium hinging on whether supply infrastructure or shipping lanes are actually touched, as opposed to the exchange of fire alone. The combination of the two drivers is what bears on the dollar: geopolitical escalation and hawkish Fed framing point the same way on the DXY, so any divergence between the dollar and rates pricing is the inconsistency to note. Follow-ons are any official confirmation of targets and damage, and whether other Fed officials echo the chair's tone.