According to RTHK, Yonhap and Ming Pao, Asian equities were mixed at midday Monday. Individual-stock figures below are snapshots as of 04:32 UTC.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 briefly climbed more than 670 points to top 67,000 for the first time in about six weeks, but failed to hold the level and slipped 30 points to 66,333 at the lunch break. Chip-equipment shares firmed, with Tokyo Electron up 1.52% and Advantest up 1.03%, while Sony eased 0.08%.

Seoul's KOSPI extended losses, shedding 167.51 points, or 2.37%, to 6,913.41 as of 11:20 a.m. local time, as foreign and institutional investors sold heavily after a 0.33% lower open. Investors weighed rising bond yields and an uncertain outlook for the Middle East. Market heavyweights mostly fell: Samsung Electronics lost 4.29% and SK hynix declined 4.73%, while SK hynix parent SK Square dropped 7.23%. The won traded at 1,361.2 per U.S. dollar.

Hong Kong stocks rebounded after three days of losses, with the Hang Seng Index at 24,666 by noon, up 156 points, or more than 0.6%, having risen as much as 260 points intraday; half-day main-board turnover reached about HK$94.8 billion. Property, financial and utility sub-indexes each rose more than 1%, while the Hang Seng TECH Index reversed early gains to close the morning at 4,288, down more than 0.5%. AIA and HSBC gained close to 2%, the three mainland oil majors rose 2% to 4%, and NetEase added more than 4% as the top gainer. Chip and AI-model names were pressured, with Hua Hong Semiconductor, Iluvatar CoreX and MiniMax falling roughly 5% to nearly 9%.

Taiwan's market was closed on Monday for the Teachers' Day (Confucius' Birthday) holiday.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite fell 67 points, or 1.74%, to 3,820 at the half-day; the Shenzhen Component dropped 448 points, or 3.37%, to 12,868; and the ChiNext Index broke below 3,200 to 3,146, down 142 points, or 4.32%. CPO, component and precious-metals shares declined, while auto, home-appliance and pork stocks advanced.