Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: CSC Financial advised investors to adopt a balanced portfolio strategy for the fourth quarter, recommending increased allocation to quality centrally-owned state enterprises in coal, power, real estate and banking. The brokerage said the sharp rise in tech stocks and steep decline in traditional sectors in the first half of 2026 created a valuation gap, with upgrades, professional consolidation and efforts to curb “involution-style” competition set to bring turnaround opportunities for undervalued sectors.

TREE NEWS reports: South Korea’s KOSPI opened lower on Tuesday, October 13, dropping 4.49% to 6,097.34 points. SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics each fell more than 4%. The decline extended as the session got underway.

TREE NEWS reports: James Lavish warned that governments are caught in a debt death spiral, forced to borrow ever more to cover interest on existing debt. As investors grow reluctant to buy long-term government bonds, pressure builds on central banks to expand money supply, he said.

TREE NEWS update: Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda is scheduled to appear before parliament at 1:00 PM local time. The appearance comes as markets watch for any signal on the BOJ’s policy stance. No further details on the agenda were provided.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s Nikkei 225 opened 0.7% lower and South Korea’s Kospi fell 3.1% at the open. Samsung Electronics dropped 3% and SK Hynix slid 4% in early Seoul trading. The declines mark a weak start for the two Asian benchmarks.

TREE NEWS reports: China is preparing to issue or is currently issuing government bonds and policy financial bonds. The offerings cover both sovereign debt and debt issued by the country’s policy banks. No further details on size, pricing or timing were provided.

TREE NEWS update: Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Azekawa will attend the International Energy Forum (IEF) meeting online instead of in person because of an attack in Riyadh. The minister said the impact of the Middle East situation on Asian energy markets is extremely severe.

TREE NEWS reports: US stocks closed mixed among major tech names, with Meta up over 3% and Apple and Microsoft each up more than 1%, while Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla and Broadcom each fell more than 1%. Storage, optical communications and computer hardware shares led declines: Quantum down over 9%, Corning 6%, SanDisk nearly 6%, SK Hynix and Super Micro over 4%, and Micron and Seagate over 3%.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s bank lending, including trusts, rose 5.3% year-on-year in September, down from a revised 5.4% gain the previous month. The reading marks a slight deceleration in the pace of credit growth, though lending to households and businesses continues to expand at a solid clip.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s domestic corporate goods price index fell 0.3% month-on-month in September, against expectations of a 0.5% rise and following a 0.2% decline in August. The reading marks a second straight monthly contraction in producer prices.

TREE NEWS update: Japan’s Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has been appointed the next chair of the joint World Bank-IMF Development Committee. She is preparing to travel to Thailand for IMF and G20 meetings, with the appointment still pending parliamentary approval.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Ministry of Finance said the export tax rebate for new energy vehicles will be lowered from 13% to 9% starting April 1, 2027, with rebates for products including electronic cigarette devices also cancelled. The MOF announcement came alongside a Commerce Ministry statement that a China-EU hybrid vehicle trade arrangement will not specifically target Chinese products, with China’s quota no lower than any other EU import source.

TREE NEWS reports: The chief executives of Intel and Broadcom warned that access to financing could become the main constraint on the AI boom, as demand for computing infrastructure continues to outstrip supply. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said capital may prove a bigger obstacle to expansion than shortages of semiconductors, memory chips or power, speaking Monday at the DBS Asia Future Forward conference in Singapore. “I think the biggest constraint is probably capital,” Tan said.

TREE NEWS reports: UK like-for-like retail sales rose 1% year-on-year in September, up from a 0.5% gain in the previous month. The September reading marks a pickup in annual growth for the comparable-store measure of UK retail activity.

TREE NEWS reports: The total scale of dividend-focused funds in China’s market surpassed 420 billion yuan, reaching 422.807 billion yuan as of October 12, up 20.58% from a year earlier, Wind data showed. A total of 54 such products were launched during the year, as persistent inflows and a wave of new offerings from institutions lifted the category’s assets amid choppy and rotating A-share trading.

TREE NEWS update: North Korea’s Missile General Bureau conducted a tactical ballistic missile test on December 12, state-run KCNA reported on December 13. The test was carried out by the bureau, the agency said. No further details on the missile type, launch site or range were given in the report.

TREE NEWS reports: Thirteen small and mid-sized Chinese insurers — including life, property and casualty, and reinsurance companies — disclosed capital increase plans in the first three quarters of 2025, totaling roughly 13.4 billion yuan in planned registered capital. Five of those plans were disclosed in September alone. Experts attributed the moves to the low interest rate environment, new accounting standards and shifts in business structure.

TREE NEWS reports: As of Oct. 12, 21 companies have completed delisting from China’s A-share market this year, spanning financial-type, major-violation forced, trading-type and voluntary delistings. Financial-type delistings accounted for 13 and major-violation forced delistings for 4, together exceeding 80% of the total. The report said a normalized, diversified delisting mechanism is reshaping the capital market ecosystem.

TREE NEWS reports: A total of 65 new public funds opened for subscription in China this week (October 12–18), the highest weekly count in nearly six weeks. Among them, 16 are fund of funds (FOF), accounting for 24.62% of new issues and set to mark a single-week record for FOF issuance.

TREE NEWS update: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Baghaei said on the 12th that Iran is reviewing the latest US proposals conveyed through mediators and will relay its position once the review concludes. He said Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz remain unchanged. The US response concerns Iran’s recent proposal to halt hostilities and reopen the strait.