Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: China exported 6,165.1 tons of rare earth magnets in September, up 23% from the previous month, customs data showed. Shipments to the United States totaled 604.2 tons, a month-on-month increase of 18%. The figures cover September and were released in the latest customs data.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s Nikkei 225 and the Topix index each fell 1%, with both benchmarks posting identical declines. No further details on individual stocks or trading volume were provided in the material.

TREE NEWS update: US Vice President JD Vance said on October 19 that he will not intervene in Israel’s upcoming parliamentary election, declining to follow President Donald Trump in publicly backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election bid. “I’m neither for endorsing him nor against endorsing him. I will not intervene in Israeli elections,” Vance said in an interview, adding that his current focus is the US midterm elections.

TREE NEWS reports: South Korea’s KOSPI extended its decline to 1.1% on the day, with the benchmark index deepening its losses. No further details on the drivers or sector breakdown were immediately available. The move comes as investors weigh broader market conditions.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s Nikkei 225 opened 0.2% lower and South Korea’s Kospi opened down 0.6%. The declines mark a weaker start for the two Asian benchmarks at the open.

TREE NEWS update: China is set to issue or is currently issuing government bonds and policy financial bonds, according to a schedule of upcoming and ongoing sovereign and policy-bank debt sales. The notice did not specify the size, tenors or exact dates of the offerings. Government bonds and policy financial bonds are the main instruments through which Beijing funds its budget and policy banks.

TREE NEWS update: Blackstone Group plans to invest $40 billion in Japan over the next three years, CEO Steve Schwarzman said. The firm’s investment interest is concentrated in real estate as well as corporate mergers and acquisitions in the artificial intelligence and defense sectors. The plan covers a three-year horizon beginning from the announcement.

TREE NEWS update: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday in a post on X that she has not ruled out issuing government bonds to help finance the overall budget. She reiterated that she will not rely on special deficit-covering bonds to fill the gap created by a temporary sales tax cut.

TREE NEWS reports: Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell 1%, the benchmark closing lower on the day. The move marks a decline for the broad Australian equity gauge, which tracks the country’s largest listed companies.

TREE NEWS update: People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said the central bank plans to make the overnight repo rate its main policy rate and will introduce a liquidity support tool for large redemptions by non-bank institutions. The PBOC also issued new rules on administrative penalties for illegal securities transfers, supporting advance-compensation entities to work with investor protection agencies.

TREE NEWS update: US Vice President JD Vance said he does not believe Ukraine should become a member of NATO, adding that Washington and Kyiv sometimes have diverging interests. The remarks, reported on Wednesday, put a top US official’s view on the record as allies debate Ukraine’s future security arrangements. Vance did not elaborate on specific policy consequences.

TREE NEWS update: US Vice President JD Vance said he has not discussed a potential 2028 presidential run with President Donald Trump and has not yet decided how to proceed. Vance added that if he does run in 2028, he believes Trump would support him.

TREE NEWS update: Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger said she will not support NextEra Energy Inc.’s $67 billion acquisition of Dominion Energy Inc. unless residential electricity rates are frozen for six years. In comments filed with state regulators on Monday, Spanberger also demanded tripling of bill credits, commitments to lower energy costs, protection from disconnection, and increased clean energy investment, raising the bar for a utility mega-merger already facing growing scrutiny.

TREE NEWS update: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the 19th that Ukraine again received no warning from Western countries before Russia launched a new round of missile and drone attacks on the night of the 18th. He also said Starlink and Starshield satellite communications systems remain unusable in different sectors of the front line.

TREE NEWS reports: US special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow this week, following talks with Ukrainian officials in Oslo, Reuters reported. The trip would mark the latest round of US diplomatic engagement with Russia over Ukraine. No further details on the timing or agenda of the visit were provided.

TREE NEWS reports: As of October 19, 161 A-share companies had released earnings forecasts for the first three quarters of 2026, with 134 issuing positive guidance, including 121 expecting year-on-year net profit growth and 13 forecasting a turnaround from losses to profit. Companies in energy storage, information technology and pharmaceuticals cited overseas business as a key growth driver.

TREE NEWS update: At least 10 of China’s 19 private banks have introduced localization measures for personal deposit business, halting new sales of personal deposit products to out-of-region customers and tightening online channels for cross-regional deposits. The banks announced the changes in a wave of recent notices, as regulators push a unified rule requiring private banks to operate within their home regions. The cleanup of cross-regional deposit-taking is now in a concentrated implementation phase.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s personal pension fund roster grew to 349 products as of September 30, 2026, up 28 from the end of the first half, while the number of sales institutions held at 52, according to the Asset Management Association of China’s latest registries. “Fixed-income plus” products drove the bulk of the expansion, marking their first inclusion in the scheme and further refining the risk-return ladder available to individual retirement savers.

TREE NEWS update: A landslide at an illegal gold mine in Nariño province, southwestern Colombia, on 19 May killed at least nine people and left several others missing, provincial official Alex González confirmed. Rescue teams are searching the rural site where miners were working when the hillside gave way, and officials said the death toll could rise.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s wind power industry is moving away from competition over single-turbine capacity toward improving unit reliability and extending turbine service life. The 15th Five-Year Plan for renewable energy targets an average confidence capacity of 8% for national wind and solar by 2030, with wind at about 11% and solar about 6%, and new centralized projects required to reach at least 10%. Integrated wind-storage products are being launched and AI is being applied across the wind farm lifecycle.