Have you ever woken up at 4 a.m. just to check what the Nikkei is doing? Yeah, me neither — until weeks like this one.
Right now, somewhere between the glow of trading screens in Singapore and the pre-dawn coffee runs in Sydney, a whole lot of money is sitting on the edge of its seat. Two numbers coming out in the next 24 hours have the power to swing trillions: China’s November inflation reading and whatever Jerome Powell decides to do with U.S. interest rates on Wednesday night.
Let’s be honest — most of the time “mixed open expected” is financial media code for “we have no idea.” But this time? This time it actually feels mixed in the truest sense. Some markets want to run. Others look exhausted. And everyone is waiting for the grown-ups to speak.
A Tale of Two Catalysts
Here’s the weird part: the two biggest events this week have almost nothing to do with each other geographically, yet they’re completely tangled together in traders’ heads.
On one side of the Pacific, China releases CPI and PPI numbers that will tell us whether Beijing’s stimulus bazooka is actually creating price pressure or just more debt. On the other side, the Federal Reserve wraps up 2025 with what 98% of the market thinks will be a 25 basis-point cut — but the dot plot and Powell’s press conference could still throw a grenade into risk appetite.
Welcome to global markets in late 2025. Everything is connected, nothing is simple.
Where Asia-Pacific Futures Stand Right Now
As I write this (Tuesday evening Eastern time), the overnight signals look like this:
- Japan’s Nikkei 225 futures are pointing higher — Chicago contract at 50,810, Osaka at 50,830 against Monday’s close of 50,655. That’s roughly a 0.3% implied gain.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng futures sit at 25,399 — fractionally below the last cash close of 25,434. Classic Hong Kong indecision.
- Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 barely moved in early cash trade — hugging the flatline like it’s scared to commit.
- South Korea’s Kospi and Taiwan’s Taiex will probably follow whatever China sentiment ends up being tomorrow morning.
In my experience, when Japan is the only one showing real conviction to the upside, it usually means global money is rotating into “safe growth” rather than full-risk-on mode. Worth keeping in mind.
China Inflation: The Number Everyone Pretends Not to Care About (Until They Do)
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room that somehow still manages to surprise people every single month.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics drops November CPI and PPI at 9:30 a.m. Beijing time Wednesday. Consensus is looking for headline CPI at +0.2% month-on-month and +1.8% year-on-year, with PPI still deep in deflationary territory at -2.3% or worse.
Here’s why it matters more than people admit: if CPI comes in hotter than 2%, suddenly all those “China reflation trade” positions that got crushed in Q3 start looking cheap again. If it prints below 1.5%, every China bear gets to dust off the “hard landing” presentation for the 47th time.
The market has priced in endless stimulus but very little actual inflation. Any surprise on the upside would force a complete reassessment of Chinese equities.
— Head of Asia equity strategy at a major European bank (who asked not to be named because, well, China)
Translation: Hang Seng and CSI 300 could gap 3–5% in either direction on the print alone. No pressure.
The Fed’s Last Dance of 2025
Meanwhile in Washington, the FOMC is widely expected to deliver the third 25 bp cut of this cycle, bringing the fed funds rate to 4.25–4.50%.
But here’s what actually moves markets now: the updated dot plot and Powell’s tone.
- Will the 2026 median dot stay at three cuts or get trimmed to two?
- Does Powell push back on the aggressive easing priced in for next year (currently ~100 bps)?
- Any mention of “pause” or “data dependence on steroids” and risk assets get the jitters.
Last night on Wall Street told the story perfectly. The S&P 500 basically went nowhere (down 0.09%), Nasdaq squeaked out a 0.13% gain on tech strength, but the Dow dropped 179 points because JPMorgan warned about higher 2026 expenses. Classic late-cycle mood.
I’ve found that when mega-cap banks start talking about cost control instead of loan growth, the party might be maturing faster than people think.
Sector Watch: What’s Working and What’s Not
While we wait for the macro fireworks, here are the pockets that have been surprisingly resilient in Asia lately:
- Japanese exporters — yen weakness continues to act like rocket fuel
- Indian IT and private banks — Nifty 50 quietly near all-time highs
- Australian miners — iron ore holding above $100 has been a gift
- Semiconductors in Taiwan and Korea — AI demand isn’t going anywhere
On the flip side, anything tied too closely to Chinese property or domestic consumption remains radioactive. Shocking, I know.
How I’m Reading the Risk/Reward Right Now
Look, nobody has a crystal ball — least of all me after too much coffee and not enough sleep. But if I had to position a portfolio for the next 48 hours, here’s the honest cheat sheet:
- Long Japan, short Hong Kong remains the cleanest asymmetry in Asia
- India stays the “quality at a reasonable price” story everyone loves to hate
- Australia will do whatever iron ore and the Aussie dollar tell it to do
- Stay nimble — this is not the week for hero trades
Perhaps the most interesting aspect? Volatility expectations are bizarrely low. The VIX closed under 16 yesterday. In a week with China data and a Fed decision? That feels like complacency dressed up as confidence.
Or maybe the market has finally accepted that rates are coming down, growth is slowing but not collapsing, and inflation is mostly behaving. Stranger things have happened in 2025.
Either way, I’ll be watching the open in Asia like everyone else — coffee in one hand, phone in the other, hoping the algorithms don’t do anything too dramatic before the humans wake up.
Because at the end of the day, that’s what global trading has become: a relay race between time zones, data points, and the occasional grown-up central banker trying to keep the whole show on the road.
See you on the other side of the data.
