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China and Hong Kong stocks extended losses after the PBOC's policy measure likely fell short of expectations or even what was needed. And local markets are unlikely to get much relief if the tone in the US markets provides its usual lead-in to Asia.

Investors are turning cautious ahead of another hefty dose of Fedspeak amidst a relatively light data docket. The main focus will be Fed Chair Powell's semi-annual monetary policy testimony (formerly known as Humphrey-Hawkins) before the House Financial Services Committee (Wednesday) and the Senate Banking Committee (Thursday).

Regarding " Fed Speak, as has been the case of late, market discussions start swirling around jobs and inflation, where the biggest disparity lies between the Federal Reserve and Market-based inflation expectations.

The Fed and the Market primarily disagree on how fast inflation will converge to the 2 % target, with the Fed thinking it's more sticky than market-based indicators. So with Central Banks in the mood to dish out inflation pain these days, investors may need to see some positive inflation data convergence to narrow the wide disparity between the Federal Reserve and the Market's forward inflation expectations before breaking fresh higher ground on US stocks.

On the other hand, both the Federal Reserve and Markets seemingly agree that the labour market rebalancing is well underway and has gone well so far. Still, as the FOMC approaches the point at which it would like to slow or stop hiking, the question becomes whether the labour market has progressed far enough to create the implicit conditions for inflation to return to 2% as the lagged impact of policy tightening takes effect.

While our in-house quantified conviction in an improving inflation outlook is increasing, US jobless claims this week are also at the top of our radar. If they continue to trend higher, it will be one of the clearest signs that the US labour market is more convincingly turning a softer corner. It would likely be a positive signpost for the risk markets as a weaker jobs market moves the Fed another notch to the hard pause camp.

With little scheduled news to steer sentiment, Tuesday's price action, where stocks are still relatively supported at lofty levels, suggests that investors are continuing to contemplate the possibility of a soft landing, the sustainability of the recent AI-fueled rally, and the Fed's less aggressive path post-July -- all of which were starting to be felt towards the tail end of last week.

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