ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | Hong Kong Tech Climbs as Alibaba, Tencent Rise; Seoul, Taiwan Ease Before Fed, BOJ Meetings

According to RTHK, HKET and Reuters, Asian equities were mixed at midday Tuesday as investors braced for likely interest-rate decisions from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan this week, with oil prices and U.S. Treasury yields climbing. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 recovered earlier losses to trade in positive territory, at 63,664.17, up 171.18 points or 0.27% as of 04:33 UTC. Chip-related names were mixed, with Tokyo Electron little changed and Advantest down 1.38%. Seoul's KOSPI slipped in continuous trade to 6,658.17, down 26.20 points or 0.39% as of 04:33 UTC, extending Monday's more-than-3% drop. Samsung Electronics edged up 0.10% while SK Hynix added 0.24%. Hong Kong stocks were narrowly lower at the midday break, with the Hang Seng Index closing the morning at 24,859, down 58 points or about 0.23%; morning main-board turnover topped HK$96.2 billion. Financial and property stocks weakened ahead of the Fed meeting, with HSBC off more than 2% and BOC Hong Kong down close to 3%. The Hang Seng Tech Index bucked the trend, ending the morning up 0.76% at 4,350, as Alibaba rose more than 2% and Tencent gained nearly 3%; AI large-model shares faced selling, with Zhipu and MiniMax down around 5% or more. Taiwan's TAIEX was softer at 45,681.34, down 181.18 points or 0.40% as of 04:33 UTC, as TSMC rose 0.42% while MediaTek fell 1.43%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite was little changed at the midday break at 3,881.41, down 0.10%, while the Shenzhen Component edged up 0.04% to 13,389.63 and the CSI 300 was flat at 4,479.47.