[MARKET ANALYSIS] Asia-Pac stocks mostly declined following the recent global bond turmoil, although Nikkei 225 bucks the trend as it plays catch-up to recent AI momentum on return from the silver week holiday

Sessions where equities take their cue from a bond selloff rather than from equity-specific news follow a familiar sequence: the pressure concentrates first in the rate-sensitive and long-duration parts of the tape, real estate and high-multiple growth, while the divergence across indices tends to reflect local factors layered on top of a common yield impulse. The Nikkei's outperformance after an extended closure is a standard catch-up pattern; returning markets typically reprice several sessions of global moves in a single session, and where the intervening driver has been sector-specific momentum, as with the AI complex here, the catch-up can run against the prevailing regional direction. Chinese indices fading despite a trade truce extension fits the established form in this relationship, where truce extensions have tended to be treated as avoidance of deterioration rather than positive catalysts, and initial optimism around high-level visits has repeatedly unwound once the absence of concrete deliverables becomes clear. The Australian labour print is the more durable local driver, since an unexpected rise in unemployment re-prices the domestic policy path independently of the global rate backdrop. The immediate tells are whether the bond rout stabilises at the long end, since equity weakness driven from yields tends to persist only as long as the rate move does, and whether US and European futures confirm or fade the Asia session's direction into their cash opens.