Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Boeing told suppliers they must abandon manual, craft-based production processes for the planemaker to hit its ambitious production ramp-up targets. Chief technology officer Lane Ballard said at an industry event that aerospace was once a craftsman industry where parts were built and riveted by hand, and that the sector now needs higher levels of automation and repeatability. Suppliers “need to understand that we have to move away from a craftsman mindset,” he said.

TREE NEWS reports: Australia’s three-year government bond yield rose 14 basis points to 5.0778%, the highest level since 2011. The move marks the first time the yield has breached that level in more than a decade.

TREE NEWS reports: As of September 23, the Beijing Stock Exchange has listed 60 new stocks this year, exceeding the full-year totals for both 2024 and 2025. The exchange’s IPO queue now stands at 223 companies, more than the combined backlog of the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.

TREE NEWS update: China Everbright Bank will halt its agency business for individual precious metals trading on the Shanghai Gold Exchange after Oct. 19, choosing its own timing. It joins ICBC, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, CITIC Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and China Guangfa Bank in exiting the service this year. Banks said physical gold distribution and gold accumulation plans are unaffected, with gold ETFs and silver ETFs still available.

TREE NEWS reports: Chinese wealth management companies have launched a fresh round of fee cuts, with some fixed management fees on wealth products dropping close to zero. With yields on fixed-income products falling and offerings heavily homogenized, firms are using fee cuts to trade price for volume and compete for existing funds. The cuts mostly target fixed management fees rather than sales service fees, a key revenue source for the companies.

TREE NEWS reports: A group of Chinese growth-style funds has rebounded more than 40% since August, with net asset values recovering quickly. Managers including Huashang Fund’s Yu Yi, E Fund’s Huang Yunjie and Founder Fubon Fund’s Qiao Peitao pushed some products to record highs this week through flexible positioning. Managers have cut pure-theme plays and weak-order names, adding on dips to high-barrier computing supply-chain stocks with sustained order validation.

TREE NEWS update: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a keynote at the company’s developer conference at 07:00 Beijing time, among the day’s scheduled events. Japan releases preliminary September manufacturing, services and composite PMIs at 08:30, while Australia’s August employment report, including jobs and unemployment rate, is due at 09:30. Central bank decisions are scheduled from the Swiss National Bank at 15:30 and Norway’s central bank at 16:00, alongside US weekly jobless claims at 20:30 and August new home sales at 22:00.

TREE NEWS reports: Hua Bao Fund, CCB Fund, HSBC Jintrust Fund, Fullgoal Fund and other Chinese mutual fund houses have held their autumn investment strategy meetings, with institutions broadly favoring equity asset allocation on expectations of abundant opportunities. AI remains a key investment theme, the funds said. The strategy meetings mark the start of the funds’ autumn positioning window.

TREE NEWS reports: US diesel prices climbed 1.21% as traders assessed the possibility of the Trump administration curbing fuel exports. The move reflects market positioning around potential export restrictions, with no further details on timing or scope provided.

TREE NEWS reports: Chinese equity-focused private funds increased their stock positions for a second consecutive week, with the stock private fund position index rising through September 18. Funds holding more than 80% of assets in equities accounted for over 67% of the total as of September 18. Industry participants expect the market’s structural rally to shift toward earnings realization, with investment opportunities likely to broaden.

TREE NEWS update: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said about 80% to 90% of Iran’s international flights have been halted. The figure, given by the top US economic official, covers the bulk of the country’s cross-border air traffic. No further detail on timing or the cause of the suspensions was provided.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s bank wealth management products reached 33.9 trillion yuan in outstanding scale, up 168.61 billion yuan from August, with 52,616 products in existence, 620 more than the prior month. Equity-linked products were the main driver of the expansion, as managers converged on a strategy of controlling volatility and drawdowns.

TREE NEWS update: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there is only one artificial intelligence czar within the US government, and that is President Donald Trump. Bessent made the remark in a statement, positioning Trump as the sole authority overseeing AI policy across the federal government. No further details on the scope of the role were provided.

TREE NEWS update: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said oil prices will be significantly lower over time, adding that energy prices have not yet fed through to core inflation. He noted that up to 17 million barrels of crude can flow through the Strait of Hormuz daily, and that PIM data disclosed on September 23 shows the US economy is very strong.

TREE NEWS reports: Nasdaq futures, S&P 500 index futures and Russell 2000 index futures each rose 0.1% in early Asia-Pacific trading on Thursday. No further market details were given in the initial quote.

TREE NEWS reports: WTI crude futures opened 0.7% higher in early Asia-Pacific trading on Thursday, trading near $93 a barrel as investors weighed renewed tensions over Iran. The move marks a firmer open for the US benchmark amid heightened geopolitical focus on the Middle East.

TREE NEWS update: World Bank Group President Ajay Banga said data centers are unlikely to spread widely in emerging markets, calling the idea of sharing scarce energy resources with artificial intelligence ill-suited to those regions. Speaking at a Bloomberg Green panel during Climate Week in New York, Banga said emerging markets have few data centers and will not get many, adding that the compute and power requirements can exceed those of developed countries.

TREE NEWS update: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a measles-related death in the United States, a case first reported by Pennsylvania. The CDC had earlier left the death out of its count amid a dispute over the criteria for attributing a death to measles, and has now added it to its 2026 measles case dashboard. As of September 17, the US has reported 3,471 measles cases this year, including 835 in Pennsylvania with 164 hospitalizations.

TREE NEWS update: The National Foreign Trade Council asked the European Commission on Wednesday to exempt companies already subject to a domestic minimum tax from parts of the EU’s anti-profit-shifting rules. In a letter to Gerassimos Thomas, head of the Commission’s tax and customs directorate, the US trade group said the EU’s controlled foreign company rules were originally meant to curb profit shifting to low-tax jurisdictions.

TREE NEWS update: Citigroup will hold a meeting with loan investors on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. New York time concerning Paramount Skydance Corp., as banks prepare to sell debt to fund its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Citi, Bank of America and Apollo Global Management co-underwrote one of the largest leveraged buyout debt packages ever earlier this year for the deal, and had locked in substantial investor demand before the transaction stalled amid threats of legal action.