Japanese 40-year bond yield rose 1.0 bp to 3.935%.

Daiwa said channel checks show sporting-goods retail sales value (RSV) slowed QoQ in Q2 and monthly volatility rose, reducing Xtep’s (1368.HK) near-term predictability. The bank flagged that a core-brand transformation will disrupt wholesale channels and require upfront investment, likely diluting near-term revenue and margins; Saucony can sustain high growth but Xtep’s core brand faces slowing growth and intensifying competition. Daiwa trims EPS forecasts by about 12%, lowers its PT to HKD3.9 from HKD5.2 and downgrades the stock to Hold from Outperform.

Intel is internally evaluating a dual-sided power-delivery architecture using both wafer front- and back-side metallization for its 1.4nm-class process to help narrow the gap with foundry rivals. The company had planned an in-house back-side power-distribution network (BSPDN) called PowerDirect for the base 14A node; it is now assessing a hybrid front-and-back metal routing approach for 14A2. The shift is driven by lithography limits, notably random defects when shrinking the minimum metal-layer spacing (M0) toward about 21nm.