July 11 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian

markets.

Did they or didn't they? The yen surged across the board on

Thursday in what may have been a perfectly timed round of

Japanese intervention upon release of a tame U.S. inflation

report that sent Treasury yields and the dollar lower.

While analysts did not rule out intervention, they said

forex players could have been caught wrong footed on short yen

positions. But local Japanese television cited government

sources as saying official intervention did occur and, while

Jiji said Japan's currency boss Masato Kanda could not comment

yes or no, the news service did quote him saying recent yen

moves were not in line with fundamentals.

Either way, the yen jumped more than 2% at one point against

the greenback and the euro moments after news that U.S. consumer

prices fell for the first time in four years, which bolstered

the case for a circumspect Fed to lower interest rates in

September.

The 0.1% CPI drop from May to June smacks of an important

dovish watershed for data-dependent Fed policymakers. Friday

brings the U.S. Producer Price Index as potential confirmation,

bits of which feed into the Fed's favorite inflation gauge, the

Personal Consumption Expenditures prices index.

Futures traders raised the odds of a Fed easing in September

to 85% from 70% before the report and added to bets for a second

cut in December.

While Wall Street took the S&P 500 and Nasdaq

to another set of intraday records after the open, a plunge in

Treasury yields was not enough to

keep the rally going. Only the Dow closed in the green.

Taiwan Semiconductor needs to carry the baton for the

chips sector, and growth stocks in general, after rotation out

of Nvidia ( NVDA ), Apple ( AAPL ) and Tesla took the

froth out of U.S. markets.

Many Asia bourses have their own momentum. No one would rule

out the Nikkei taking a breather from its record-setting

streak. MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index rose

1.4% on Thursday.

Beijing's quinquennial Party plenum looms next week as a

source of signals for China's markets. Meanwhile, fresh curbs on

short selling could mean another day of positive vibes for the

Shanghai Composite index after it's 1.06% gain Thursday.

Likewise for the blue-chip CSI300 index.

Dollar/yen was down 1.8% at 158.79 in late U.S.

trade. The euro rose 0.34%.

The yuan strengthened against the falling dollar

and was last at 7.2582 per dollar.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction

to markets on Friday:

- Malaysia industrial output (May)

- Japan industrial output (May)

- U.S. Producer Price Index (June)

- JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup earnings (Q2)

(Compiled by the Global Finance & Markets Breaking News team;

Editing by Josie Kao)