[MARKET UPDATE] Asia-Pac stocks are pressured at the open as the risk-off mood persists following a surge in oil prices and upside in yields, triggered by the latest exchange of US-Iran strikes

Asia-Pac stocks are pressured at the open as the risk-off mood persists following a surge in oil prices and upside in yields, triggered by the latest exchange of US-Iran strikes.

Strike exchanges between the US and Iran have, in past episodes of this kind, followed a recognisable sequence: an initial gap lower in equities and bid in crude and havens at the Asia open, with the durability of the move hinging on whether the exchange is read as contained retaliation or the start of an escalation ladder. The transmission runs through two channels that behave differently: the oil leg, which prices supply risk via freight, insurance and the prompt end of the crude curve, and the rates leg, where upside in yields suggests the market is pricing the inflationary pass-through of energy rather than a pure growth scare, since a clean flight-to-quality would pull yields the other way. That distinction matters for how equity sectors split, with energy and defence typically outperforming against rate-sensitive and transport names. The historical pattern is that markets fade single exchanges within sessions when no critical infrastructure or shipping chokepoint is hit, and reprice more durably when the strait of Hormuz or Gulf export capacity enters the frame. What is worth watching next is whether either side signals an off-ramp, whether tanker traffic and insurance rates in the Gulf actually shift, and how crude behaves once European and US desks take over, since follow-through beyond the Asia session has been the tell in comparable episodes.