Japan stock set to trade lower as bond yields rise again

Japan stock set to trade lower as bond yields rise again

SINGAPORE “” Shares in Asia-Pacific slipped in Thursday morning trade following overnight declines on Wall Street as bond yields rose again.In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 1.19% in early trade while the Topix index shed 0.83%. South Korea's Kospi dropped 1.39%.Shares in Australia also declined as the S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.32%. Australia's retail sales and trade data for January are expected to be out at around 8:30 a.m. HK/SIN.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.55% lower.

Technology stocks decline

Investors kept an eye on tech shares in Asia on Thursday after their counterparts stateside fell overnight amid a rise in bond yields.Shares of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group dropped 3.02% in Thursday morning trade while South Korean industry heavyweight Samsung Electronics fell 1.9% while chipmaker SK Hynix slipped 2.38%.The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.7% to close at 12,997.75, with shares of Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet all dropping more than 2% each.Other major indexes on Wall Street also declined on Wednesday: The S&P 500 fell 1.31% to 3,819.72 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 121.43 points to 31,270.09.The moves came as the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose again, last sitting at 1.4877%. The benchmark rate surged to a high