Daily market brief

Today (15 September, Tuesday HKT) Hong Kong, Japanese and mainland markets all traded normally. US and European figures below are for the 14 September (Monday) close; Asian figures are for the 15 September close.

• US equities (14 Sep close): Dow 52,421.20, -152.09 (-0.3%); S&P 500 7,619.98, -37.00 (-0.5%); Nasdaq 26,186.41, -146.62 (-0.6%). The three main indices fell back again after Friday's bounce; AI names dragged the Nasdaq while gains in non-AI sectors limited the decline.
• US Treasuries (14 Sep): the 10-year yield touched 5.01% intraday, the first time since October 2023, before closing around 4.96%; the 20-year was at 5.38%. Surging oil plus heavy government and corporate issuance kept yields high, feeding into US mortgage and auto-loan costs.
• Hong Kong equities (15 Sep close): Hang Seng Index 24,667.24, -250.36 (-1.00%); Hang Seng Tech -0.62%; H-share index -0.96%; turnover HK$187.2bn. Autos and lithium-battery names slumped, mainland banks were pressured, semiconductors held up; Tencent rose 1.9% against the trend and topped turnover at HK$9.58bn, while Zhipu and MINIMAX-W fell more than 5%.
• Japan — equities and bonds (15 Sep): the Nikkei was almost flat at 63,484.10 (-0.01%), down 0.5% early before a V-shaped recovery. Japan's plan to set the medium-term defence spending target at 3.5% of GDP triggered a JGB sell-off, with the 30-year yield up 5.5bp to 4.12% and the 10-year up 4bp to 3.025%.
• China — equities and macro (15 Sep): Shanghai Composite 3,864.28 (-0.54%), Shenzhen Component 13,287.97 (-0.72%), ChiNext 3,247.92 (-1.15%). The PBoC conducted a RMB500bn six-month outright reverse repo on 15 September; August CPI was only +0.8% y/y, aggregate financing rose RMB23.91trn in the first eight months (RMB2.64trn less than a year earlier), and M2 stood at RMB356.81trn at end-August, up 7.5% y/y.
• European equities (14 Sep close): STOXX Europe 600 635.99 (-0.49%); FTSE 100 10,658 (-0.37%), DAX 25,402 (-0.15%), CAC 40 8,090 (-0.34%).
• FX: dollar index around 99.6 (+0.2%); USD/HKD 7.8432 (14 Sep, still in the weak half of the band); onshore USD/CNY 6.7120; USD/JPY 155.08; EUR/USD 1.1540.
• Commodities (14 Sep / Asian session): Brent settled at US$105.68 (approaching US$110 intraday) and recovered to about US$108 in the Asian session on 15 September; WTI around US$103.2 (+3.2%). Gold US$4,293.66/oz (-0.13%, safe-haven demand offset by high rates); silver US$63.78 (+0.9%).
• Fed meeting (15-16 Sep): August CPI was 3.4% y/y (+0.4% m/m) with core CPI +0.3% m/m (2.4%) — inflation has not cooled. CME data put the odds of a 25bp hike on 16 September at about 90%; Chair Kevin Warsh stressed that inflation has not improved and that "we still have work to do". Rates have held at 3.50-3.75% since the start of the year; the decision is due in the early hours of Thursday, Hong Kong time.
• Middle East and oil: attacks by Yemen's Houthis and Iran on Saudi energy infrastructure and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz led Saudi Arabia to shut the East-West pipeline that bypasses Hormuz, with the market fearing up to 4% of global supply could be affected; Brent has gained nearly 9% over the past week, and the surge in diesel prices is the direct driver of higher US Treasury yields.
• Bank of Japan (17-18 Sep): the market is almost certain of a 25bp hike to 1.25%, which would be the highest since April 1995, with pricing around 98%. Focus is on Governor Kazuo Ueda's guidance on the path of hikes and the risk that roughly US$2.35trn of yen carry trades could unwind.
• AI sell-off: senior figures at Anthropic and OpenAI have warned that frontier model development should slow, hitting global AI and chip stocks (Nvidia, AMD, SanDisk among the losers) and taking Hong Kong AI names Zhipu and MINIMAX-W down more than 5%; money rotated into non-AI sectors.

Main risk note: Wednesday's Fed decision and Friday's BoJ decision, combined with the oil shock, mean near-term volatility will be concentrated in Treasury yields and the yen.