Now I have all the catalysts confirmed. Let me write the post.

The setup into Aug 10–Aug 14, 2026

Asia Pacific enters the new week split down the middle. The ASX 200 closed at 9,263.6, up 3.2% for the week, with gold miners Northern Star (+14.1%) and Mineral Resources (+10.7%) leading. The Nikkei added 1.9% to 65,606.7 and the Shanghai Composite gained 2.8% to 3,940.0. Taiwan’s TWSE rose 2.6% to 44,225.9 on the back of a 9.7% surge in MediaTek. On the other side, the KOSPI dropped 5.1% to 6,258.8 — SK Hynix fell 17.2% and Samsung Electronics lost 12.0% as the global AI-chip correction hit Seoul hardest. The Hang Seng slipped 0.8% to 25,668.0. China’s July CPI (+0.5% YoY) and PPI (+3.5% YoY) both came in below consensus on Saturday, confirming that domestic demand is still bottoming rather than accelerating. That soft print will hang over Monday’s open in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Aug 10–Aug 14, 2026 — the calendar

Monday Aug 11 (RBA board convenes). The Reserve Bank of Australia begins its two-day meeting. Markets will be watching for any shift in language around trimmed mean inflation, which printed at 3.6% in the June quarter — still above the 2-3% target band. Australia’s lending indicators for Q2 also drop Monday.

Tuesday Aug 12 — RBA decision day. The cash rate announcement at 2:30pm AEST is the week’s headline regional catalyst. The RBA is universally expected to hold at 4.35%, the 12-year high set in June after three consecutive 25bp hikes. The bigger market-mover will be the quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy, which carries updated forecasts for inflation, GDP, and the labour market. Any hawkish revision to the trimmed mean path could reprice rate-cut expectations that have been building in the front end of the Australian rates curve. Westpac’s August consumer confidence survey also lands Tuesday — the prior reading was soft enough to keep the “households are struggling” narrative alive.

Wednesday Aug 13 — US CPI + Tencent. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the July CPI report at 8:30am ET (10:30pm AEST). June’s print came in at 3.5% YoY, below the 3.8% consensus — a second downside surprise would likely boost risk appetite across Asia’s Thursday open. After the Hong Kong close on Wednesday, Tencent reports Q2 2026 earnings. The read will be on gaming revenue momentum, marketing services growth, and the pace of AI infrastructure spend — the stock has been range-bound since the Hang Seng pulled back from its April highs. India’s July CPI is also due Tuesday-Wednesday; June ran at 4.38%, above the RBI’s 4% target but within the tolerance band after the MPC held at 5.25% on August 5.

Thursday Aug 14 — JD.com. JD.com reports Q2 and interim 2026 results after the Hong Kong close (conference call at 8pm Beijing time). Back-to-back Tencent and JD.com reports create a two-day event window that will set the tone for the broader China internet complex through August options expiry. India’s industrial production data for June is also expected around this window.

Friday Aug 15. A lighter day on the data front. Japan’s Q2 GDP preliminary estimate lands on Saturday Aug 16, so any pre-positioning for that number — particularly whether the yen carry-trade unwind has started to bite domestic consumption — will show up in Friday’s Nikkei price action.

Levels and instruments to watch

The ASX 200 at 9,263.6 is testing the upper boundary of the range it has traded in since the May breakout. An RBA hold with dovish SMP language could push it toward the 9,400 area; a hawkish surprise on the inflation forecast path would likely send it back to the 9,100 support that held through July.

The KOSPI at 6,258.8 is the index under most stress. Samsung and SK Hynix account for roughly half the index weight — the 5.1% weekly drawdown was almost entirely semiconductor-driven. Any stabilisation in US chip names (SOX index) heading into the week would give Seoul room to bounce, but the structural concentration risk means the KOSPI will remain the highest-beta index in the region to AI sentiment shifts.

The Hang Seng at 25,668.0 enters the Tencent/JD.com earnings window with a modest 0.8% loss on the week. Saturday’s soft CPI/PPI prints argue against a re-acceleration trade in Chinese domestic demand — watch whether Tencent’s ad-services revenue (a proxy for SME spending) confirms that read. Shanghai at 3,940.0 held the 3,900 round number on the week’s close; a break below would refocus attention on whether the fiscal acceleration Beijing signalled in July is arriving fast enough.

The bias

The setup favours cautious risk-on with a wide distribution of outcomes. Australia’s macro backdrop (strong labour market, sticky inflation, a central bank on hold) supports the ASX as a relative-value play within the region. Japan sits in a constructive range at 65,606.7 with yen weakness still underpinning exporters. China and Hong Kong are in a “show me” phase — earnings need to deliver because the macro data is not doing the work. Korea is the tail risk: a 5.1% drawdown led by the two largest names means the KOSPI is pricing in a continuation of the global chip correction, and any further SOX weakness would amplify that move.

The one thing that flips the entire region from cautious to outright defensive is a hot US CPI print on Wednesday. A re-acceleration above 3.5% would reprice Fed rate-cut odds, push the dollar higher, and compress risk appetite across every Asian currency and equity market into Thursday’s open. Conversely, a second consecutive downside CPI surprise would likely trigger a broad Asia-wide rally, with the beaten-down KOSPI and Hang Seng as the highest-beta beneficiaries.