ASIA MARKET CLOSE | Hong Kong Slips 1% and Korea Falls a Fourth Day on Chip, Rate Jitters; Nikkei Flat

According to RTHK, HKET and Yonhap, Asian equities closed mostly lower on Tuesday as a fresh climb in U.S. bond yields and a selloff in chip and memory names pressured the region. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 finished virtually unchanged at 63,484.10, down 8.89 points or 0.01%, after a choppy session that spanned a range of more than 1,030 points. Chip-related names lagged, with Advantest down 2.96% and Tokyo Electron off 0.55%, while Sony fell 1.66%. Seoul's KOSPI ended down 0.85% at 6,627.26, its fourth straight losing session, as the won weakened against the dollar amid rising bond yields. Bank of Korea minutes pointed to a possible policy rift over back-to-back rate hikes. Samsung Electronics eased 0.20% and SK Hynix slipped 0.41%. Hong Kong stocks retreated, with the Hang Seng Index closing down 1.00% at 24,667.24 and the Hang Seng Tech Index off about 0.6% at 4,291; turnover reached HK$187.2 billion. Tencent bucked the trend to rise about 1.9% and Alibaba added more than 1%, while Lenovo fell nearly 3%, Zhipu dropped about 5% and MINIMAX declined 7%. Taiwan's TAIEX closed down 351.03 points or 0.77% at 45,511.49 on thin turnover of NT$603.5 billion, as memory and chip stocks bore selling pressure. TSMC rose NT$5 or 0.21% to NT$2,385, while MediaTek fell 2.85% and Hon Hai eased 0.80%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 0.54% at 3,864.28, its fourth straight decline, and the ChiNext Index fell 1.15% to 3,247.92, with A-share turnover holding near a year-to-date low.