Flash News

TREE NEWS update: The People’s Bank of China held a symposium with foreign financial institutions on September 21, chaired by Deputy Governor Xuan Changneng, to gather their views and study further improvements to the business environment and high-level opening of the financial sector. PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng attended and delivered remarks. Also present were PBOC Deputy Governor Zou Lan and SAFE Deputy Administrators Xu Zhibin and Li Bin.

TREE NEWS reports: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said he is optimistic the Federal Reserve can return to a 2% inflation path as long as there is no further evidence of demand overheating. He said the Fed is still working out how much of inflation stems from supply shocks versus demand. Goolsbee did not indicate a specific policy path or timing for rate decisions.

TREE NEWS update: The 169th joint patrol and law enforcement operation by China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand on the Mekong River started at 9 a.m. on September 21. Before the launch, law enforcement departments from the four countries held a commanders’ joint meeting and a multilateral information exchange in Jinghong to discuss cross-border crime enforcement and information sharing.

TREE NEWS reports: JPMorgan and the Qatar Investment Authority are planning a $20 billion investment partnership. The tie-up would pair the largest US bank with the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, which manages assets on behalf of Qatar. No further terms, timeline or investment targets were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, a 2027 FOMC voter, said the Federal Reserve must have the courage to address inflation. Goolsbee made the remark in comments published Thursday, without specifying any policy action or timeline. His statement comes as the Fed continues to weigh inflation risks against economic conditions.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs convened a national video conference on the “three autumns” agricultural production, urging full efforts to secure this year’s grain and agricultural harvest. The meeting called for timely progress on autumn and winter planting to lay the foundation for next year’s grain and oil output. Minister Zhang Zhu attended and delivered a speech.

TREE NEWS update: Iranian authorities have shut down a French language teaching center affiliated with the French embassy in Iran, acting on a judicial order from the Tehran prosecutor’s office on national security grounds. Officials said the center had operated without proper licensing for years despite repeated compliance notices, and accused it of activities harmful to Iran’s culture and national security, including identifying and building networks of individuals and facilitating the departure of Iranian technical talent.

TREE NEWS reports: Roughly 56% of the $4 trillion-a-day foreign exchange swap market is now traded electronically, as trading platforms push to automate a business long dependent on voice brokers. The share lags spot FX, where about 71% of trades are executed electronically. The gap is widest in the interbank market, where traders still rely on voice brokers for large positions.

TREE NEWS reports: Porsche dealers in Beijing said the Cayenne is not available at the 618,000-yuan price circulating in market rumors, which claimed a 300,000-yuan cut from the 918,000-yuan list price. One dealer salesperson said the Cayenne now costs over 800,000 yuan to complete purchase and is out of stock, while the Macan can be had for 540,000 yuan on the road.

TREE NEWS update: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, a 2027 FOMC voter, said restoring price stability “won’t be painless” and that the only way back to balance is to cut demand. The Fed must see credible evidence that supply shocks are receding, he said, warning that ignoring repeated shocks would be a dereliction of duty on price stability. Goolsbee said the US is in a new environment of persistent supply shocks, leaving the Fed facing a trade-off between inflation and unemployment.

TREE NEWS update: Novo Nordisk reported results from its Reimagine 5 trial, in which its CagriSema treatment achieved a 12.4% weight reduction. The company disclosed the headline efficacy figure for the obesity drug candidate in the study.

TREE NEWS reports: US President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday and pressed him to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries, citing concern over rising diesel prices. The call was disclosed in a report citing people familiar with the conversation.

TREE NEWS reports: WTI crude fell 3.0% on the day to $93.18 a barrel, while Brent crude dropped 2.5% to $96.78 a barrel. The intraday declines marked a sharp pullback in both benchmark grades.

TREE NEWS update: Beijing Yunrui Changshi Technology Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of ByteDance’s Beijing Zitiao Network Technology, acquired the OS-15 plot in the Olympic Park South Zone in Beijing’s Chaoyang district for a base price of 2.613 billion yuan. The site covers about 22,400 square meters with planned gross floor area of roughly 91,700 square meters and is zoned for business and financial use.

TREE NEWS update: NATS, the UK’s national air traffic management company, said on September 21 that a technical fault at its Prestwick control centre in Scotland caused flight delays across northern England, Scotland and parts of adjacent airspace. The company has imposed air traffic flow restrictions to manage demand in the affected airspace, and engineers are on site investigating and repairing the fault.

TREE NEWS update: The Securities Association of China convened its Q3 2026 chief economist meeting for the securities and fund industry on Sept 18, with more than 70 participants from the CSRC, government departments and system units. Chen Li of Chuancai Securities released the Q4 2026 chief economist economic forecast survey, while Wang Han of Industrial Securities gave an outlook on the macro economy and capital market.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin reached $85,000 for the first time since January, nearing an eight-month high as markets focused on cooling oil prices. The move marks the token’s strongest level in roughly eight months, with traders tracking the pullback in crude as a driver of risk appetite.

TREE NEWS update: China’s national standard grain warehouses now have 730 million tonnes of usable storage capacity, the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration said at a State Council Information Office briefing on the “15th Five-Year Plan” opening. The administration said the country’s grain storage technology has reached world-advanced levels, with new and upgraded high-standard warehouses improving facilities and layout to curb losses during storage.

TREE NEWS update: Iran’s presidential office announced on the 21st that President Masoud Pezeshkian will depart for the United States on the 22nd to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The US government refused visas for his media team, so he will travel to New York without them. The general debate of the 81st UN General Assembly opens on the 22nd in New York, and Pezeshkian is expected to address the assembly on the 23rd.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s national industrial sales revenue rose 7.3% year on year in the first eight months of 2025. Mining grew 8.3%, manufacturing 7.5% and electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply 5%. Equipment manufacturing sales climbed 10.1%, with computer and communication equipment up 18.8%.