On Wednesday stateside, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to lower its benchmark interest rates by a quarter percentage point to a range of 3.5%-3.75%.

However, given that traders are all but certain that the cut will happen — an 87.6% chance, to be exact, according to the CME FedWatch tool — the news is likely already priced into stocks by the market.

That means any whiff of restraint could weigh on equities. In fact, the talk in the markets is that the Fed might deliver a “hawkish cut”: lower rates while suggesting it could be a while before it cuts again.

The “dot plot,” or a projection of where Fed officials think interest rates will end up over the next few years, will be the clearest signal of any hawkishness. Investors will also parse Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference and central bankers’ estimates for U.S. economic growth and inflation to gauge the Fed’s future rate path.

In other words, the Fed could rein in market sentiment even if it cuts rates. Perhaps end-of-year festivities might be muted this year.

U.S.-China AI talent race heats up

When it comes to brain power, “America’s edge is deteriorating dangerously,” Chris Miller, author of the book “Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology,” told a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee last week. It’s a lead that’s “fragile and much smaller” than its advantage in AI chips, he said.

Part of the difference comes from the sheer scale, especially as education levels rise in China. Its population is four times that of the U.S., and the same goes for the volume of science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates. In 2020, China produced 3.57 million STEM graduates, the most of any country, and far outpacing the 820,000 in the U.S.

— Evelyn Cheng

The CEO of South Korean online retail giant Coupang Corp. resigned Wednesday, three weeks after the company became aware of a massive data breach that affected nearly 34 million customers.

Coupang said CEO Park Dae-jun resigned due to the data breach incident — which was revealed on Nov. 18 — according to a Google translation of the statement in Korean.

“I am deeply sorry for disappointing the public with the recent personal information incident,” Park said, adding, “I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the outbreak and the subsequent recovery process, and I have decided to step down from all positions.”

Following his resignation, parent company Coupang Inc. appointed Harold Rogers, the Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel, as interim CEO.

Coupang said that Rogers plans to “focus on alleviating customer anxiety caused by the personal information leak” and to stabilize the organisation.

Park, who joined the company in 2012, became Coupang’s sole CEO in May, after the company transitioned away from a dual-CEO system.

According to Coupang, he was responsible for the company’s innovative new business and regional infrastructure development, and led projects to expand sales channels for small and medium enterprises, among others.

South Korean companies are known for being “very, very cost-efficient,” which may have led to neglecting areas like cybersecurity, Peter Kim, managing director at KB Securities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” Wednesday.

“I think the core issue here is that we’ve had a number of other breaches, not just Coupang, but previously, telecom companies in Korea,” Kim added. “I understand some data companies consider Korea to be [the] top three or four most breached on a data, on an IT security basis in the world.”

South Korean companies have been hit by cybersecurity breaches before, including an April incident at mobile carrier SK Telecom that affected 23.24 million people. The country previously saw one of its largest cybersecurity incidents in 2011, when attackers stole over 35 million user details from internet platforms Nate and Cyworld.

Nate is one of the most popular search engines in South Korea, while Cyworld was one of the country’s largest social networking sites in the early 2000s.

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok reportedly said Wednesday that strict action would be taken against the company if violations of the law were found, according to South Korean media outlet Yonhap.

Police also raided the Coupang headquarters for a second day on Wednesday, continuing their investigation into the data breach.

Yonhap also reported, citing sources, that the police search warrant “specifies a Chinese national who formerly worked for Coupang as a suspect on charges of breaching the information and communications network and leaking confidential data.”

Last week, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for increased penalties on data breaches, saying that the Coupang data breach had served as a wake-up call.

— CNBC’s Chery Kang contributed to this report.