(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Friday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had risen more than 20 points or 0.5 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 4,920-point plateau although it may rebound on Monday.
(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Friday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had risen more than 20 points or 0.5 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 4,920-point plateau although it may rebound on Monday.
The Philippine peso is likely to sink to new lows against the dollar as the country’s outsized vulnerability to high energy costs offsets expected interest rate hikes, analysts said. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is estimated to raise policy rates by up to 100 basis points this year, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. said, a move that would normally support the peso. Yet rising import costs from higher ...
The Philippine peso is likely to sink to new lows against the dollar as the country’s outsized vulnerability to high energy costs offsets expected interest rate hikes, analysts said. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is estimated to raise policy rates by up to 100 basis points this year, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. said, a move that would normally support the peso. Yet rising import costs from higher oil prices, stemming from the US-Iran war, are weighing on growth and the trade balance, strategists at Sumitomo Mitsui, BNY, and MUFG Bank said. The peso has dropped about 3% this year to 60.61 per dollar, while hitting a record low in late April. The strategists project further weakness toward the 62 to 63 range in the months ahead. The murky outlook reflects the Iran war’s toll on the country uniquely exposed to slowing international commerce, with its dependence on overseas workers’ remittances and heavy imports of refined oil . The peso’s further weakness would only worsen some of these pressures, raising costs and hurting consumers’ purchasing power in an already weak economy. “The peso is likely to retain its weakening bias in 2026 due to the uncertain growth outlook, wide current account deficit and elevated inflation risks,” said Khoon Goh , head of Asia research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Singapore. His firm forecasts the peso to weaken to 63.0 by the year-end. A BSP rate hike typically bolsters the peso by widening interest‑rate differentials and drawing in foreign investments seeking higher yields. But surging oil prices, which force the country to spend more dollars on imports, eat away at those gains. Such dynamics risk exerting greater downside pressure on growth, said Wee Khoon Chong , senior APAC market strategist at BNY. Indifferent Market moves show investors remain indifferent to rate hike prospects. The peso lagged all Asian peers on April 24, even after the BSP governor signaled that day the central bank will likely deliver modest rate...
Critics question former German chancellor’s suitability, while others think Europe should seize every chance for peace. What we know on day 1,538 German officials have reacted cautiously to Vladimir Putin’s surprise suggestion that former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could act as a mediator in Ukraine war peace talks , saying they had “taken note” of Putin’s comments but viewed them as part ...
Critics question former German chancellor’s suitability, while others think Europe should seize every chance for peace. What we know on day 1,538 German officials have reacted cautiously to Vladimir Putin’s surprise suggestion that former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could act as a mediator in Ukraine war peace talks , saying they had “taken note” of Putin’s comments but viewed them as part of “a series of bogus offers” from Russia, government sources told Agency-France Presse. One source said a real test of Moscow’s intentions would be to extend the current three-day truce . Schröder, 82, has remained close to Putin long after leaving office , standing apart from most western leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 . He previously held key roles in Russian energy projects, including work on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and a seat on the board of Russian oil firm Rosneft, which he gave up in 2022. Putin on Saturday said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down and he nominated Schröder as a potential key negotiator to help end the conflict. Michael Roth, a former lawmaker from Germany’s Social Democratic party (SPD) and chair of the foreign affairs committee, said a mediator “cannot be Putin’s buddy”, in an interview with Tagesspiegel . He stressed that any mediator must above all be accepted by Ukraine. “Neither Moscow nor we can decide that on Kyiv’s behalf.” Others within the party, however, have been more open to Putin’s suggestion. Quoted by Der Spiegel, the SPD’s foreign affairs spokesperson in parliament, Adis Ahmetovic, said the proposal needs to be “carefully considered” with European partners . SPD lawmaker Ralf Stegner argued, in the same magazine, that “if we don’t want Putin and (US President Donald) Trump to decide Ukraine’s future” alone, Europe should seize every possible chance – however small. Meanwhile, the US-mediated ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine appeared under serious strain on its second day on Sunday, writes Angelique Chri...
Just over a year after the London Metal Exchange (LME) approved its first batch of warehouses in Hong Kong, the city now hosts 15 facilities run by seven operators, with close to 25,000 tonnes of metals stored. It marks a triumph for both the LME and Hong Kong’s ambition to be a commodities trading hub. But the challenge is finding sufficient space to meet surging demand, said LME CEO Matthew Cham...
Just over a year after the London Metal Exchange (LME) approved its first batch of warehouses in Hong Kong, the city now hosts 15 facilities run by seven operators, with close to 25,000 tonnes of metals stored. It marks a triumph for both the LME and Hong Kong’s ambition to be a commodities trading hub. But the challenge is finding sufficient space to meet surging demand, said LME CEO Matthew Chamberlain in an interview on Thursday. Chamberlain described it as a “very positive problem” – though...
Israel’s next election campaign is well under way, with political defections, fractious coalition-building and naked appeals to ethnic exclusion marking its opening salvoes as a crowded field of challengers queues up to try Benjamin Netanyahu for the security catastrophe of October 7, 2023 and the wars that followed. The vote, constitutionally set for this October, is shaping up as a referendum on...
Israel’s next election campaign is well under way, with political defections, fractious coalition-building and naked appeals to ethnic exclusion marking its opening salvoes as a crowded field of challengers queues up to try Benjamin Netanyahu for the security catastrophe of October 7, 2023 and the wars that followed. The vote, constitutionally set for this October, is shaping up as a referendum on the prime minister’s central claim to power: that only he can keep Israel safe. But after two and a...
flowgraph/iStock via Getty Images Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ( AMD ) has surged following a big quarterly report and very bullish signs on huge CPU demand related to AI. The chip company had become a leader in CPU server chips before the market suddenly shifted to spending on AI GPUs, but the market is now shifting back in their favor. My investment thesis remains ultra Bullish on the stock, wit...
flowgraph/iStock via Getty Images Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ( AMD ) has surged following a big quarterly report and very bullish signs on huge CPU demand related to AI. The chip company had become a leader in CPU server chips before the market suddenly shifted to spending on AI GPUs, but the market is now shifting back in their favor. My investment thesis remains ultra Bullish on the stock, with signs the $600 price target is now far too low due to surging CPU demand. Source: Finviz Focus on CPU Shift AMD reported another strong quarter. The Q1'26 numbers weren't the big story though: Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $1.37 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $10.25B (+37.8% Y/Y) beats by $330M. For Q2'26, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $11.2 billion, plus or minus $300 million vs. $10.52 billion. The chip company reported strong numbers, but the stock market isn't excited about just 38% growth during this AI boom for chips. The Q2 guidance was very strong with revenue targets of $11.2 billion, nearly $1 billion above the Q1 numbers and far above the consensus estimates. AMD didn't really surge until CEO Lisa Su started talking about the CPU demand on the Q1'26 earnings call as follows: At our Financial Analyst Day in November, we outlined the server CPU market growing at approximately 18% annually over the next 3 to 5 years. Based on the demand signals we are seeing today and the structural increase in CPU compute requirements driven by Agentic AI, we now expect the server CPU TAM to grow at greater than 35% annually, reaching over $120 billion by 2030 . In response to this demand, we are working closely with our supply chain partners to meaningfully increase our wafer and back-end capacities to support this growth. As a result, we now expect server CPU revenue to grow by more than 70% year-over-year in the second quarter, with robust growth continuing through the second half of 2026 and into 2027 as we ramp our next-generation EPYC processors. Lisa Su discussed CPU server rev...
A small group of bankers in Hong Kong tasked with cleaning up the city’s unprecedented pile of bad debt is done playing nice. They number under 200 people, less than 0.07% of the city’s finance workforce. But these so-called special asset bankers are up against a large and increasingly urgent task: cutting a HK$200 billion ($25.5 billion) pile of soured debt that’s pushed the city’s distressed loa...
A small group of bankers in Hong Kong tasked with cleaning up the city’s unprecedented pile of bad debt is done playing nice. They number under 200 people, less than 0.07% of the city’s finance workforce. But these so-called special asset bankers are up against a large and increasingly urgent task: cutting a HK$200 billion ($25.5 billion) pile of soured debt that’s pushed the city’s distressed loan ratio to a two-decade high. Working behind the scenes, the specialists have increasingly been turning to last-resort tactics of selling collateral or pushing borrowers into liquidation, often due to losses on Hong Kong commercial real estate, according to more than a dozen such bankers and people who work directly with them. Lenders have been building out these squads—which some also call special credit, recovery & collection, or workout teams—as they seize a window of opportunity to cut losses and free up money for fresh lending as the rest of the economy rebounds. At least half a dozen lenders in Hong Kong have increased their number of special asset bankers, people familiar with the matter said. Among them, Bank of East Asia Ltd. and United Overseas Bank Ltd.’s Hong Kong branch have nearly doubled headcount since 2024, while Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd. and Hang Seng Bank Ltd. have added a handful of the specialists to teams that already had more than 10 people, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. A UOB spokesperson said the bank works constructively with customers facing challenges, while safeguarding the interests of its stakeholders. BOC and Hang Seng declined to comment, while BEA didn’t respond to requests seeking comment. The work of such specialists can be unpleasant, given they’re dealing with borrowers “at their lowest lows,” said Jason Bedford , a visiting senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute. One banker at a Chinese lender, who asked not to be identified discussing personal details, described fr...
flowgraph/iStock via Getty Images Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ( AMD ) has surged following a big quarterly report and very bullish signs on huge CPU demand related to AI. The chip company had become a leader in CPU server chips before the market suddenly shifted to spending on AI GPUs, but the market is now shifting back in their favor. My investment thesis remains ultra Bullish on the stock, wit...
flowgraph/iStock via Getty Images Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ( AMD ) has surged following a big quarterly report and very bullish signs on huge CPU demand related to AI. The chip company had become a leader in CPU server chips before the market suddenly shifted to spending on AI GPUs, but the market is now shifting back in their favor. My investment thesis remains ultra Bullish on the stock, with signs the $600 price target is now far too low due to surging CPU demand. Source: Finviz Focus on CPU Shift AMD reported another strong quarter. The Q1'26 numbers weren't the big story though: Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $1.37 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $10.25B (+37.8% Y/Y) beats by $330M. For Q2'26, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $11.2 billion, plus or minus $300 million vs. $10.52 billion. The chip company reported strong numbers, but the stock market isn't excited about just 38% growth during this AI boom for chips. The Q2 guidance was very strong with revenue targets of $11.2 billion, nearly $1 billion above the Q1 numbers and far above the consensus estimates. AMD didn't really surge until CEO Lisa Su started talking about the CPU demand on the Q1'26 earnings call as follows: At our Financial Analyst Day in November, we outlined the server CPU market growing at approximately 18% annually over the next 3 to 5 years. Based on the demand signals we are seeing today and the structural increase in CPU compute requirements driven by Agentic AI, we now expect the server CPU TAM to grow at greater than 35% annually, reaching over $120 billion by 2030 . In response to this demand, we are working closely with our supply chain partners to meaningfully increase our wafer and back-end capacities to support this growth. As a result, we now expect server CPU revenue to grow by more than 70% year-over-year in the second quarter, with robust growth continuing through the second half of 2026 and into 2027 as we ramp our next-generation EPYC processors. Lisa Su discussed CPU server rev...
Innovent Biologics, Inc. (Innovent) (HKEX: 01801), a world-class biopharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures, and commercializes high-quality medicines for the treatment of oncology, autoimmune, cardiovascular and metabolic, ophthalmology, and other major diseases, announced that the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has granted a...
Innovent Biologics, Inc. (Innovent) (HKEX: 01801), a world-class biopharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures, and commercializes high-quality medicines for the treatment of oncology, autoimmune, cardiovascular and metabolic, ophthalmology, and other major diseases, announced that the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has granted a third Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) to its first-in-class PD-1/IL-2α-bias bispecific fusio
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the most prominent investment theme on Wall Street over the past few years. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has benefited dramatically from this trend, with the stock up over 640% in the past three years. But with its next earnings report on May 20, investors are concerned about whether the stock has already run too far or if there is still more upside left. Here are so...
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the most prominent investment theme on Wall Street over the past few years. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has benefited dramatically from this trend, with the stock up over 640% in the past three years. But with its next earnings report on May 20, investors are concerned about whether the stock has already run too far or if there is still more upside left. Here are some reasons why I am considering buying the stock before the numbers come out. Continue reading
The summer of 2006 was meant to be England's moment. A world-class squad, celebrity partners and confident fans - the hype was huge and the fall was hard.
The summer of 2006 was meant to be England's moment. A world-class squad, celebrity partners and confident fans - the hype was huge and the fall was hard.