Fed in the spotlight as Warsh faces Congress

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MISX00000PUS was down 1.2%, led by declines for shares in Taipei .TWII and Seoul .KS11.

Despite the ongoing bear market in South Korea — at one point on Tuesday the Kospi had logged its worst two-day decline since the start of the Iran war — it remains one of the world's best-performing indexes this year.

In early European trades, pan-region futures STXEc1 were down 0.9%, German DAX futures FDXc1 fell 0.9% and FTSE futures FFIc1 slid 0.4%.

Chinese stocks fared better than most after data showed exports surged in June, buoyed by demand for chips and data centre computing power to fuel the global AI boom.

Asian markets are crumbling and Brent crude is bubbling around $85 per barrel as U.S. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh prepares to give testimony to Congress over the next two days. No pressure, then.