Markets Hold Steady as Fed Rate-Decision Looms – Asia Market Wrap

Stocks treaded water as markets saw muted moves across most asset classes, with traders taking risky bets off the table ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest-rate decision.

With equities near record highs, the mood reflected uncertainty over how the Fed would frame the path for rates, as a quarter-point cut at this meeting and three more by April were already priced in. The risk is that policymakers – while aiming to safeguard the labor market – strike a less dovish tone to keep inflation in check.

Also looming over the meeting is the standoff over Fed policy, with President Donald Trump’s hard-charging push for lower borrowing costs clashing with Chair Jerome Powell’s hitherto cautious stance on tariff-driven price pressures.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were little changed. Nvidia slipped 1.4% in premarket trading after a Financial Times report that a Chinese watchdog ordered the country’s biggest tech firms to terminate orders for the RTX Pro 6000D product. Bloomberg’s gauge of the dollar held near a 2022 low.

Global bond markets posted modest gains, with the yield on 10-year US Treasuries falling one basis point to 4.01%. Gold retreated from a record after briefly breaking through $3,700 an ounce in the previous session.

Alongside the expected 25 basis-point cut, investors will also pore over the Fed’s latest quarterly rate projections, known as the dot plot. Back in June, the Fed penciled in three cuts through the end of 2026, compared to nearly six priced in now by traders. Some bond traders are ramping up options bets on the Fed delivering at least one half-point cut over the three policy meetings left this year. The trades would pay off if policymakers opt for as many as two half-point moves, or three quarter-point reductions in September, October and December.