[MARKET ANALYSIS] Asia-Pac stocks trade mixed with a further tech sell-off due to weak earnings

APAC Stocks: Mixed

• Asia-Pac stocks are mixed amid notable tech weakness and with further selling pressure in the sector after disappointing earnings from Amazon and Intel, while participants digest a slew of data at month-end and await the BoJ policy decision.

ASX 200: +0.5%

• Trades higher with softer yields helping offset the losses in tech, consumer staples and mining stocks.

Nikkei 225: -1.8%

• Index is pressured by tech woes, while participants also digest a slew of mixed data and await the BoJ.

KOSPI -5.2%

• Underperforms and triggered a sidecar after the recent disappointing big tech earnings stateside.

Hang Seng & Shanghai Comp: Hang Seng +1.2% / Shanghai Comp -0.7%

• Chinese markets are mixed amid a deluge of earnings and with Hong Kong outperforming as platform companies pick up the slack from chipmakers, while the mainland is pressured after a record number of purges at the Fifth Plenum.

US Equity Futures: Lower

• Retreated after-hours with Emini Nasdaq 100 leading the declines following weak earnings from Amazon and Intel, which saw their shares drop by more than 8% and 23%, respectively.

European Equity Futures -0.6%

• Indicate a lower cash market open with Euro Stoxx 50 futures down 0.6% after the cash market closed with gains of 0.6% on Thursday.

This is the standard month-end Asia wrap where the driving variable is a spillover from US megacap earnings into regional tech, a transmission that in past episodes has concentrated in the most semis-heavy indices, which is why the KOSPI underperforms the peer set while more domestically weighted benchmarks like the ASX hold up. A sidecar trigger on the Korean exchange is a mechanical response to a sharp futures move and historically marks peak intraday stress rather than a directional signal in itself; the tell in prior sessions of this kind has been whether the halt is followed by stabilisation once the mechanical selling exhausts, or by a second leg once Europe and the US cash session re-engage with the same earnings narrative. The split within China, Hong Kong platform names absorbing flows while mainland chipmakers lag, fits the recurring pattern in which disappointment in the US hardware complex is read as a sector rotation story rather than a broad China risk story. The BoJ decision into month-end rebalancing is the known catalyst that has historically capped conviction in the Nikkei ahead of the announcement, and month-end flow itself tends to amplify moves in whichever direction the session is already leaning. The follow-ons are the European cash open confirming or fading the futures signal, and the US session's treatment of the earnings laggards, since second-day continuation versus buy-the-dip has been the reliable separator between one-session air pockets and the start of a sector derating.