South Korean PPI (Aug MM) 0.2% (Prev. -0.4%)

A swing from contraction to a modest positive month-on-month print is a small move in absolute terms; Korean PPI has historically been driven less by domestic demand than by the won and imported energy costs, so the pass-through question is whether the turn reflects currency weakness feeding import prices or a genuine change in pipeline pressure. Month-on-month Korean PPI prints of this size rarely move the front end of the KRW curve on their own; the Bank of Korea's reaction function has tended to key off CPI and the output gap, with producer prices treated as a leading indicator rather than a trigger. The distinction worth drawing is between a one-month rebound after a negative print, which often proves noise around commodity and FX swings, and the start of a sequence, which is what has historically mattered for pricing BOK timing. The follow-on is the corresponding CPI release, which will show whether pipeline pressure is reaching the consumer level, and won direction against the dollar as the main transmission channel. As a single second-tier print, the signal is directional at most.