Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: The Hang Seng Index main futures contract closed up 0.78% at 23,133 points in the night session. The Hang Seng Tech Index futures rose 1.19% to 3,839 points over the same session. The night-session moves reflect positioning ahead of the next cash-market open in Hong Kong.

TREE NEWS reports: Valero Energy reported its highest-ever quarterly profit, beating Wall Street expectations, as fuel supply disruptions tied to the wars in Iran and Ukraine drove third-quarter refining margins higher. Diesel prices used in manufacturing and agriculture have hit record highs, and gasoline prices remain elevated, pressuring consumers and President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of next month’s midterm elections while boosting refiners’ earnings.

TREE NEWS update: Elon Musk said Tesla is producing Megapacks at as high a rate as possible, commenting on the company’s energy-storage production. The remark gave no production figure or target date. Megapack is Tesla’s utility-scale battery storage product, and the comment signals continued emphasis on output of the system.

TREE NEWS reports: The Nasdaq 100 extended its decline to 3% on the day, with the semiconductor index down 6.5% and a memory-chip index falling more than 8.1%. An AI-winners index dropped over 6.5% while an AI-software pioneers index fell 1.3%, and the S&P 500 was down 1.5%.

TREE NEWS reports: Tesla earned $787 million last quarter, down 43% from $1.37 billion a year earlier, as spending on robots and self-driving cars surged. The company said Optimus is now in production and it aims to deliver Cybercabs to customers by year-end.

TREE NEWS reports: Elon Musk said earlier this week that merging SpaceX and Tesla is a “good idea” and that a special committee has been formed to discuss the combination. JPMorgan analysts said the move could quietly open a path for SpaceX to join the S&P 500, where Tesla is already a constituent, because a stock-for-stock deal could let the index committee exercise discretion to waive certain eligibility rules.

TREE NEWS reports: Brent crude climbed above $111 to a five-month high as Nvidia, Meta and chip stocks fell, pulling Asia’s benchmark indexes down by as much as 3.5%. The selloff came a week after South Korea’s Kospi plunged 7.57%, with the declines also weighing on the S&P 500.

TREE NEWS reports: Moderna shares fell 25% and Merck dropped 3.1% after media reports said results from the companies’ closely watched personalized melanoma vaccine trial may have leaked. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index was down 1.8% at the time of reporting. Neither company confirmed the leak.

TREE NEWS update: L’Oréal’s chief executive said the rise of GLP-1 drugs is affecting consumption of beauty products, the company’s top executive stated. The remark links demand for the weight-loss and diabetes medications to changing consumer behavior in the cosmetics market. No figures or further details were provided.

TREE NEWS reports: Moderna shares fell as much as 20% on the day, with the biotech index sliding 1.6%. The move marks a sharp single-session drop for the vaccine maker and weighed on the broader biotech sector.

TREE NEWS update: Epic Games said its shooter game Fortnite will return to Apple’s Australian App Store on Thursday, after a federal court ruled Apple violated antitrust law and ordered the iPhone maker to open up its iOS operating system. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called the remedies in the Australian Epic v. Apple antitrust case “a massive win for consumers and developers” in a post on X.

TREE NEWS reports: Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted about $1.07 billion over three sessions, flipping October flows to a net gain of roughly $460 million, even as Bitcoin and Ethereum prices slipped. The three-day inflow streak erased the earlier October outflow and left the month positive.

TREE NEWS reports: Kering said flagship brand Gucci’s third-quarter sales fell 6% to €1.29 billion ($1.44 billion), weighed down by weak demand, denting hopes for a near-term recovery at the luxury group. Gucci accounts for about half of Kering’s profit, and group revenue slipped 1% on a constant-currency basis. Asked on a call whether Kering still targets group growth this year, finance chief Armelle Poulou declined to comment, saying the company would address it with full-year results.

TREE NEWS update: Kering’s chief financial officer said the luxury group’s third-quarter results were not what the company had hoped to see. The CFO’s remarks addressed the group’s Q3 performance directly, without providing further figures in the statement.

TREE NEWS update: BE Semiconductor Industries (BESI) reported third-quarter orders of €342.6 million ($385.2 million), beating the €298 million Visible Alpha analyst consensus and rising 17% quarter-on-quarter and 96% year-on-year, driven by strong AI data-center demand. The Dutch chip-equipment maker also rejected reports that ASML could challenge it in hybrid bonding, a chip-interconnect technology.

TREE NEWS reports: Elon Musk has invested $1 billion in Skydance, the media company led by David Ellison. The investment was disclosed in a report, with no further details provided on the structure or terms of the deal. Skydance is the production studio behind major film and television titles.

TREE NEWS update: L’Oréal reported third-quarter adjusted like-for-like revenue growth of 7.7%, exceeding analysts’ expectations of 5.43%. The figure, released as part of the company’s quarterly update, indicates the cosmetics group outpaced consensus forecasts for the period.

TREE NEWS update: Micron Technology (MU) said it will introduce a global employee bonus plan tied to quarterly financial results starting in fiscal 2027, after pressure from its Taiwan labor union for workers to share more of the profits from the AI boom. The quarterly bonus pool will be calculated as after-tax profit minus projected capital expenditure for the next quarter, based on fiscal 2026, with half paid in cash after earnings are released and half in stock vesting a year later.

TREE NEWS reports: Gucci’s third-quarter same-store sales fell 6%, steeper than the 3.29% decline analysts had expected. Parent company Kering reported group revenue of €3.35 billion for the quarter, in line with analyst estimates, while Gucci’s own revenue came in at €1.29 billion versus a €1.30 billion consensus.