A resilient Asia handoff and an in-line July CPI print have cleared the path for Wall Street's AI-earnings rally to keep running into the cash open.
Seoul did the heavy lifting overnight, with the Kospi jumping as much as 2.4% intraday as chip and AI-linked names extended their run, while Tokyo returned from holiday to a muted 0.1% gain and Hong Kong futures slipped roughly 0.4%, pointing to a softer Hang Seng open. The regional MSCI Asia-Pacific gauge added about 0.4%, with CSI 300 little changed. Dollar-yen holds a heavy bid near 159.3-159.5, retracing half of last week's intervention-driven bounce and edging back toward the 160 line that has previously drawn Tokyo's attention; offshore yuan is tracking that yen softness in a tight, low-volatility range.
The read-through into the US session is constructive. July CPI landed in line at 3.4% headline and 2.5% core, lifting market-implied odds of a September hold to roughly 60% and taking the immediate hike threat off the table even as oil sits above 83 dollars on lingering Strait of Hormuz supply fears. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures are firmer, with tech doing the work after blowout prints from CoreWeave and Super Micro reaffirmed the AI infrastructure trade and pulled megacap chip and hyperscaler names higher into the open.
The risk: this is a data-and-earnings-dependent tape, not a conviction rally — a hawkish turn in Fed commentary, a soft retail-sales or PPI surprise later this week, or a fresh leg lower in the yen through 160 forcing BOJ intervention chatter would flip the mixed Asia handoff into outright risk-off and hit the crowded AI-earnings trade first.