May 30 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian

markets.

A remarkably light economic data and events calendar in Asia on

Thursday will allow investors to chew over the rise in U.S. and

global bond yields that appears to be gathering pace,

strengthening the dollar and tightening financial conditions.

Unsurprisingly, risk appetite is suffering.

The MSCI World equity index fell 1% on Wednesday and the MSCI

Asia ex-Japan index slumped 1.6%, its biggest fall in six weeks.

Hopes of a rebound on Thursday will have been tempered by Wall

Street's slide deep into the red too.

Thursday's regional calendar offers few major market-moving

signals. Reserve Bank of Australia's deputy governor Sarah

Hunter is scheduled to speak, Australian home building approvals

data will be released and Taiwan revises first quarter GDP.

Friday's calendar, by contrast, is packed with top-tier

releases including Chinese PMIs, Tokyo inflation and India's Q4

GDP, all of which precedes the main event of the week - U.S. PCE

inflation for April.

Investors have to navigate Thursday first though, and market

waters are getting increasingly choppy.

The 10-year Japanese Government Bond yield is now at 1.075%,

the highest since late 2011 and up eight days out of the last

nine.

But these juicier yields aren't doing much for the yen, which is

sliding closer to 158.00 per dollar, where Japanese authorities

are suspected to have intervened on May 1 selling dollars to

support the domestic currency.

Global yields, already significantly higher than Japan's,

are also rising. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield jumped another

seven basis points on Wednesday to 4.64%, the highest in a

month, and the two-year yield briefly topped 5.00% again.

U.S. yield spreads over other jurisdictions may not be

widening much in the dollar's favor, but they are staying wide

enough to ensure the dollar remains investors' currency of

choice.

The dollar index rose 0.5% on Wednesday, its biggest rise in

a month.

China bulls

, meanwhile, might have been encouraged by the International

Monetary Fund's assessment on Wednesday of Asia's largest

economy. The IMF upgraded its 2024 and 2025 GDP growth outlooks

by 0.4 percentage points to 5% and 4.5%, respectively.

But the IMF was more cautious on the longer term outlook,

warning that growth could slow to 3.3% by 2029 due to an aging

population and slower expansion in productivity.

More immediately, the economy's strong performance in Q1

might have set the bar of expectations too high - China's

economic surprises index continues to fall and is now on the

brink of turning negative.

If China's economic surprises index is grinding lower,

however, Japan's has fallen off a cliff. At the start of May it

was +35.2, and on Wednesday it was -36.8, the lowest since

January last year.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction

to markets on Thursday:

- RBA deputy governor Sarah Hunter speaks

- Australia home building approvals (April)

- Taiwan GDP (Q1, revised estimate)