Well, Chinese stocks may have been in a veritable free fall on Monday, but a combination of upbeat Chinese econ and downbeat US econ had other regional shares on the rise as investors bet on a slowing pace of policy normalization in the US.

Japan was closed, but the MSCI Asia Pacific Index hit a goddamn nine-year high for the second session in a row:

(BBG)

“It’s a positive signal that China’s economic growth has not only bottomed but momentum is picking up,” 

Margaret Yang, a strategist at CMC Markets in Singapore told Bloomberg by phone, underscoring the fact that although China’s batshit crazy equity markets didn’t respond to this morning’s econ numbers, their more sane regional counterparts did.

But again, the real story here is probably Yellen’s dovish lean on Capitol Hill last Wednesday and the soft CPI print that came two days later.

“With Yellen emphasizing that rate direction is on price inflation performance, markets are expecting an extension to the more accommodative environment after the inflation data,” said Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG Asia Pte Ltd.

“It’s like the bar has reopened and people are coming back again for drinks,” BDO’s Jonathan Ravelas added. “There is no threat coming from inflation so the risk of another interest rate hike in the U.S. has diminished significantly.”

Right.

The KOSPI hit yet another record on Monday while the won continued to advance, hitting a 1-month high. As we noted last week, “nothing says bullish like nuclear war.”

Speaking of mushroom clouds, Bloomberg notes that “South Korea proposed resuming some military and humanitarian exchanges with North Korea while the National Red Cross floated reunion events for families split by decades of hostilities [but] North Korea didn’t immediately respond to the latest offers saying, on Saturday, that the South’s approach is a ‘series of sleep-talking sophistries that create even greater hurdles’ to talks.” So that’s fun.