[MARKET ANALYSIS] Asia-Pac stocks trade mixed following the similar performance stateside and as tech sectors

APAC Stocks: Mixed

• Asia-Pac stocks trade mixed following a similar performance stateside, where the Dow extended on its record levels, but the Nasdaq underperformed amid weakness in communication stocks, while the tech sector dragged overnight and tariff tensions resurfaced.

ASX 200: +0.4%

• Climbed to a fresh record high with mining, materials and resources leading the advances, while trade data also showed a surprise surplus and a rebound in exports.

Nikkei 225: -1.0%

• Retreated amid chip-related weakness with Kioxia among the worst hit.

• Underperforms as recent volatility continued to dent investor sentiment, with SK Hynix shares down about 8%, but had suffered another pre-market flash crash in which its shares dropped by the daily limit of 30% on the Nextrade bourse before ending the pre-market session down 2%.

Hang Seng & Shanghai Comp: Hang Seng -1.9% / Shanghai Comp +0.1%

• Chinese markets are mixed, with insurers pressured after Chinese tax authorities began levying personal income tax on returns of offshore insurance policies, while trade-related frictions continued to resurface after MOFCOM announced it would strengthen drone export controls to the US and will impose countermeasures on six US entities, as well as take countermeasures against US compliance-testing firms.

US Equity Futures: Mixed

• Price action is range-bound with index futures continuing yesterday's mixed performances.

European Equity Futures +0.2%

• Indicate a mildly positive cash market open with Euro Stoxx 50 futures up 0.2% after the cash market closed with losses of 0.2% on Wednesday.

Session wrap-ups of this kind bundle several threads, and the durable ones here are the idiosyncratic rather than the beta stories. The SK Hynix episode fits a familiar pattern around Korea's parallel pre-market venue: thin liquidity on the alternative bourse has produced limit moves that the main session repeatedly failed to validate, and the gap between the pre-market print and the cash open is the tell for whether the move is flow-driven or fundamental. The semiconductor drag across the Nikkei and KOSPI alongside Nasdaq underperformance is the standard cross-session transmission, with memory names typically amplifying the Philadelphia-style complex in both directions. On the China side, tax authorities moving on offshore insurance returns and MOFCOM tightening drone export controls with countermeasures against US entities extends the established tit-for-tat sequence in which sector-specific names, here insurers, absorb the first leg before any broader read-across. The ASX record on miners and a surprise trade surplus is consistent with the index's recurring sensitivity to commodity and export prints. Worth noting next: whether the tariff rhetoric converts into scheduled measures, how SK Hynix trades in the main session relative to the pre-market dislocation, and whether the US-Europe futures divergence persists into the cash open.