Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Kent said the Australian dollar may be trading slightly above its trade-weighted index equilibrium level. The remark, delivered as a single statement, points to the central bank’s view that the currency is modestly strong on a trade-weighted basis. No further policy guidance or figures were provided.

TREE NEWS reports: The approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s cabinet fell to 49.1%, its lowest level since the cabinet was formed and the first time it has dropped below 50%. 17-18 and published Feb. 18. The figure is down 4.3 percentage points from the previous month’s survey.

TREE NEWS update: Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Kent said global economic growth is performing better than most people expected, adding that the central bank is watching rising neutral interest rates. Markets consider long-term CPI expectations to be well anchored, he said.

TREE NEWS reports: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both fell more than 5% in pre-market trading on South Korea’s Nextrade platform. The two chipmakers are among the largest constituents of the benchmark Kospi index. No specific reason for the declines was given in the material.

TREE NEWS reports: UK October Rightmove average house asking price index rose 1% month-on-month, accelerating from a 0.7% increase in the prior reading. The figure, published by property portal Rightmove, measures the change in average asking prices for homes listed on its platform across the UK.

TREE NEWS update: The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the Convention on Biological Diversity opened on 18 October in Yerevan, Armenia. The summit will conduct the first global collective review of the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and push for progress toward the framework’s 2030 targets.

TREE NEWS reports: US equity futures climbed in early Asian trading, with S&P 500 futures gaining 0.3% and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.6%. The move signals a firmer open for Wall Street as investors returned to risk assets.

TREE NEWS reports: More than 30 Chinese private fund managers had announced purchases of their own products as of Oct. 18, totaling close to 1.6 billion yuan this year. Firms managing over 10 billion yuan accounted for more than 1 billion yuan of the total, making them the main drivers of the self-purchases amid heightened market volatility.

TREE NEWS reports: Bosera Fund, Huabao Fund and Tianhong Fund have tightened caps on large subscriptions to their off-exchange bond funds, while on-exchange bond ETFs saw heavy inflows, as equity market volatility revived the stock-bond seesaw effect. Industry participants said the bond market has support in the fourth quarter, though timing remains key.

TREE NEWS reports: Jinxin Fund, Southern Fund and Dongcai Fund have become the first Chinese mutual fund companies to disclose their third-quarter 2026 reports, kicking off the quarterly reporting season. During the quarter’s volatile trading, several funds adjusted their holdings while some newer funds built positions quickly. Multiple fund managers struck an optimistic tone on equity assets, favoring companies with improving earnings quality and broad long-term industry growth potential.

TREE NEWS reports: A-share main indexes stabilized on Oct. 15-16 as broad-based ETFs saw sharp increases in trading volume, after the Shanghai Composite briefly fell below the 3,700-point mark during a correction that began in late September. Brokerage strategy reports said the pullback stemmed from overseas macro disturbances combined with internal structural pressures, and that concentrated release of prior positioning pressure plus strong ETF net inflows have made the market’s stage bottom gradually clearer.

TREE NEWS update: China releases third-quarter GDP, retail sales, industrial output, fixed-asset investment and property development investment at 10:00 Beijing time, with the State Council Information Office holding a press conference on the economic data. The 2026 Financial Street Forum opens in Beijing, where heads of the central bank and securities regulator are due to speak. China’s 70-city home price report is due at 09:30.

TREE NEWS update: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on the 18th that Ukrainian attacks on Russia cannot change the course of events, describing Ukraine as in its death throes and attempting to resist. Peskov said Russia has been responding to Ukraine’s actions with systematic, large-scale strikes that are producing results, when asked how Moscow would respond to Ukraine’s large-scale attack on St. Petersburg.

TREE NEWS update: The 2026 Financial Street Forum opened in Beijing on Oct. 19 and runs through Oct. 22, drawing more than 400 senior guests from over 40 countries and regions under the theme “Openness, Cooperation, Inclusiveness — Building a New Ecosystem for Global Financial Development.” PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng, NFRA Director Ding Xiangqun, CSRC Chairman Wu Qing and SAFE Administrator Zhu Hexin will attend and deliver keynote speeches. The program includes 21 main and parallel forum sessions plus three special conferences.

TREE NEWS reports: As of 18:00 on Oct. 18, 159 A-share companies had released third-quarter earnings forecasts, with 132 issuing positive guidance, Wind data showed. The positive forecasts comprised 98 pre-increases, 13 turnarounds and 21 slight increases, accounting for 83.02% of the total. Sixty-one companies, including Hengli Petrochemical, Lianxun Instruments, Fudan Microelectronics and Hanyu Pharmaceutical, expect net profit attributable to shareholders to rise more than 100% year on year, with seven forecasting gains of over 10x.

TREE NEWS update: China’s National Bureau of Statistics will release third-quarter economic data on October 19. Institutions broadly expect the economy to have continued improving in Q3, supported by resilience in industrial production and services, strong exports and a low base effect.

TREE NEWS update: US President Donald Trump on Oct. 18 published an open letter to the Israeli public on Truth Social endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election bid for prime minister. Trump said Iran has long called for the destruction of Israel and the US and has been systematically hit militarily and economically, warning that Washington will soon complete the relevant actions if Tehran does not change course. He added that if Israel had the wrong leader — anyone other than Netanyahu — the US might have to finish the job itself, which he said he is not inclined to do.

TREE NEWS update: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said a tanker that violated rules struck a mine in the southern Strait of Hormuz early on the 19th, causing an explosion and fire in its engine room. The IRGC Navy warned that any vessel navigating the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf with its navigation and identification systems switched off will face severe penalties.

TREE NEWS update: China’s State Council Information Office will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 19, at which National Bureau of Statistics spokesman and deputy director Mao Shengyong will present the country’s economic performance for the first three quarters of 2026 and take questions from reporters. The briefing covers national economic operations for the period.

TREE NEWS update: The Czech opposition won a landslide victory in the second round of Senate elections that ended on 17 October. The ruling ANO (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) party failed to win any seats in the partial Senate re-election.