Morning Bid: 'Tis the season to be choppy

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Gregor Stuart Hunter:

Having passed through the autumn equinox to pumpkin-spiced latte season, it's a little mysterious that markets have yet to encounter any of the weakness historically found this time of year. Until today, that is.

Stocks are falling across Asia after a sell-off on Wall Street overnight fanned by softer-than-expected economic data and comments from Jerome Powell that gave few clues about the future path of interest rates. The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index is off 0.2% around lunchtime for most of the region.

Still, soggy data aside, the index is still up 5.6% so far this month and hovering near a four-year high. But the usual dip-buyers were nowhere to be found, with U.S. stock futures trading flat. In early European trades, pan-region futures were down 0.4% at 5,470, German DAX futures were off 0.3% and FTSE futures sank 0.3%.

Australian shares sank almost 1% after a bigger-than-expected rise in consumer prices in August. Japan's Nikkei stock index slid 0.5% after manufacturing sector activity fell at the fastest pace in six months in September, driven by further declines in new orders.  

Even so, there were bright spots to be found, especially in Chinese markets. Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares jumped 5% after the e-commerce giant announced on Wednesday its largest artificial intelligence language model to date, the Qwen3-Max, which contains more than 1 trillion parameters. That's almost six times as many as the original version of ChatGPT when it was released three years ago.

Elsewhere, New Zealand on Wednesday named Anna Breman as its new central bank governor, the first woman in the role, who joins following a major shakeup at the bank amid criticism over its management of the economy.

Breman is currently the First Deputy Governor of Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank.

And Jimmy Kimmel is back on the airwaves after a six-day suspension over on-air remarks about the man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk. "I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back," U.S. President Trump wrote on Truth Social, threatening further action against the network. 

"Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE," he posted.

Key developments that could influence markets on Wednesday:

Economic data:

Germany: Ifo Business Climate, Current Conditions and Expectations for September

US: New home sales for August, EIA weekly crude oil stocks

Debt auctions:

Germany: 7-year government debt

U.K.: 4-year government debt

(Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter; Editing by Kate Mayberry)