Most of the recent conversation around Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has centered on artificial intelligence (AI) . At its annual developers conference this week, the tech giant walked through a long-awaited overhaul of its Siri voice assistant and its broader Apple Intelligence AI features -- and investors weren't especially impressed. After touching an all-time high of about $317 earlier this month, shar...
Most of the recent conversation around Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has centered on artificial intelligence (AI) . At its annual developers conference this week, the tech giant walked through a long-awaited overhaul of its Siri voice assistant and its broader Apple Intelligence AI features -- and investors weren't especially impressed. After touching an all-time high of about $317 earlier this month, shares have eased back to around $291 as of this writing. But for a company worth about $4.3 trillion, where the iPhone still brings in about half of all revenue, the more important near-term question may have little to do with AI. It could come down to hardware -- and specifically, whether Apple can keep its current upgrade wave going while adding something genuinely new to the lineup. There's reason to think it can. Continue reading
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is raising an uncomfortable question for Asian governments: could the virus travel through the region’s airports before health systems detect it? While experts say the risk of a major outbreak in Asia remains low, the latest flare-up has renewed scrutiny of whether hospitals, contact tracers and border surveillance systems remain re...
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is raising an uncomfortable question for Asian governments: could the virus travel through the region’s airports before health systems detect it? While experts say the risk of a major outbreak in Asia remains low, the latest flare-up has renewed scrutiny of whether hospitals, contact tracers and border surveillance systems remain ready after years of post-Covid fatigue and strained global health funding. Khoo Yoong Khean, deputy...
Bizlink Holding Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the information and communications technology unit of Blackstone Inc. ’s Interplex, according to people familiar with the matter. The Taiwanese company and Blackstone are hammering out details of a transaction that could be announced as soon as Wednesday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Bizlink is a p...
Bizlink Holding Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the information and communications technology unit of Blackstone Inc. ’s Interplex, according to people familiar with the matter. The Taiwanese company and Blackstone are hammering out details of a transaction that could be announced as soon as Wednesday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Bizlink is a partner of Nvidia Corp. A transaction for the business known as ICT might be valued at about $850 million, with an additional $50 million earnout, the people said. Representatives for Bizlink and Blackstone declined to comment. Bizlink halted trading pending a major announcement, according to a late Tuesday stock exchange filing. Bizlink makes a wide range of products from drone interconnects to automotive power distribution, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging systems, according to its website . The company has grown both organically and via acquisitions. Its shares have climbed 42% this year, giving it a market value of $13.3 billion. Bizlink had been considering buying ICT and had put in an offer to buy the business, people familiar with the matter said in April. Earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported Blackstone was considering selling ICT amid interest in the unit. Blackstone acquired Singapore-based Interplex for an undisclosed sum in 2022 from Baring Private Equity Asia . Interplex makes components used in electric vehicles, autonomous driving, medical and life sciences and cloud computing, while ICT focuses on areas such as networking enclosures, servers, disk drives, wearables and mobile devices.
A seasonal cash demand spike in Hong Kong is set to lift funding costs, making it less attractive to pursue a carry trade using the local dollar, analysts said. Listed firms’ mid‑year dividend payouts and banks’ need to meet regulatory metrics have lifted funding demand. That surge has pushed the one‑month Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate, or Hibor , to its highest level since January this week. A...
A seasonal cash demand spike in Hong Kong is set to lift funding costs, making it less attractive to pursue a carry trade using the local dollar, analysts said. Listed firms’ mid‑year dividend payouts and banks’ need to meet regulatory metrics have lifted funding demand. That surge has pushed the one‑month Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate, or Hibor , to its highest level since January this week. A rising Hibor narrows the interest rate gap between the US dollar and Hong Kong dollar. Investors who previously borrowed cheap local dollars to buy higher-yielding greenback assets may unwind some of those trades, said Carie Li , a strategist at DBS Bank in Hong Kong. Unwinding these carry trades may ease short-term currency pressure. Higher interbank rates will also drive up household borrowing costs, including mortgage payments in a market heavily linked to Hibor. “Hong Kong dollar demand will increase due to seasonality, including half-year end and dividend payouts,” Li said. “If Hibor goes up, it may trigger an unwinding” of some carry trades and drive the US dollar down. The one-month Hibor will likely rise to a 3%-4% range in the coming months, Li estimated. The rate stood at about 2.68% Wednesday. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the de-facto central bank in the city, issued its largest overnight loans to banks in almost four months on Tuesday. That came after HK$920 million ($117 million) of discount-window lending . “When demand for HKD spikes, then borrowing from HKMA happens, meaning there is no ‘squeeze’ or issue in the system,” said Wee Khoon Chong , Asia Pacific market strategist at BNY. “So the HKMA lending is likely due to a technical factor.” Carry trades have pushed the Hong Kong dollar toward the weak end of its 7.75–7.85 band versus the US dollar. It’s nearing the weakest level since August as local stocks stay on track for their first annual drop in three years, intensifying capital‑outflow pressure.