On a Wednesday morning in Hong Kong, markets registered the quiet arithmetic of a world growing more expensive and less certain. Rising American bond yields — driven by sovereign debt issuance and the vast capital appetites of artificial intelligence infrastructure — made premium-valued technology stocks harder to justify, while a geopolitical standoff over the Strait of Hormuz reminded investors that energy, and therefore inflation, remains hostage to history. The declines were modest in number but meaningful in signal: the era of abundant, cheap capital that once lifted all vessels is recedi