Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: The Bank of England may soon stop selling the long-dated government bonds it bought during the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, as long-dated gilt yields climb to multi-decade highs. Officials at the BoE, the Treasury and the Debt Management Office have drafted plans, though the final decision rests with the central bank. Market participants expect the BoE to slow its balance-sheet reduction to £50 billion a year over the 12 months starting in October, keeping active sales at about £20 billion.

TREE NEWS update: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on the 15th that it intercepted and shot down an MQ-1 drone in airspace east of the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC announced the action in a statement the same day. No further details on the drone’s origin or the circumstances of the intercept were given.

TREE NEWS update: Offshore Oil Engineering Co., Ltd. announced on September 15 that the Qatar BH EPIC project has begun construction at the Qingdao International High-end Equipment Manufacturing Base in Shandong. The project is the largest international offshore oil and gas engineering, procurement, installation and construction (EPIC) contract ever undertaken by a Chinese company by contract value, and the broadest in scope with the highest overall construction difficulty.

TREE NEWS reports: Heilongjiang’s border checkpoints recorded about 617,000 Russian inbound travelers over the year since China’s visa-free trial for Russian ordinary passport holders began on Sept. 15, 2024, up 76.9% year on year. Total inbound and outbound crossings at the province’s ports reached roughly 3.388 million, a 29.3% increase, according to the Heilongjiang General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection.

TREE NEWS update: GSK agreed to pay up to $750 million to privately held Chinese biotech Numab Therapeutics for an experimental blood cancer drug, the UK drugmaker said Tuesday. GSK will test the acquired candidate in multiple myeloma, with early-stage clinical trials to begin next year, as it continues to build out its oncology pipeline.

TREE NEWS reports: Asian private equity firms are reportedly interested in bidding for Italian motorsport gear brand Alpinestars. No bid value, named buyer or timeline was disclosed. Alpinestars makes racing suits, boots and protective equipment used in Formula 1 and MotoGP. The reported interest would put an Italian motorsport equipment maker in play for private equity buyers from Asia.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and National Forestry and Grassland Administration issued guidance on optimizing natural resource allocation to promote orderly tourism development. The guidance encourages using existing space for tourism, calling on localities to set criteria for identifying inefficient tourism land, assess such land, and support combined cultural, tourism, sports and commercial business formats.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on September 15 that Beijing consistently supports the peaceful use of outer space and opposes its weaponization, militarization and an arms race, urging Washington to stop its military buildup in space. Guo was responding to an AFP question about the US Space Force’s claim that it already possesses in-orbit space weapons, and whether China has such weapons of its own.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Foreign Ministry said on September 15 that it is monitoring the situation in the Middle East and Gulf region and hopes relevant parties will resolve disputes through political and diplomatic channels. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun made the remarks at a regular press briefing in response to a question about a US military official’s claim that the Iran conflict has left US forces facing shortages of troops or resources.

TREE NEWS reports: Brent crude rose 2.0% on the day to trade at $107.8 a barrel, a single-session gain that lifted the international benchmark to that level. The move marks the latest intraday advance in oil prices.

TREE NEWS update: The Agricultural Development Bank of China issued four bonds totaling 19 billion yuan. A 406-day bond raised 8 billion yuan at a 1.4113% yield against 1.4100% expected, with a 2.66x bid-to-cover and 1.26x marginal ratio. Two 2-year bonds raised 6 billion yuan at 1.4768% and 3 billion yuan at 1.4584%, while a 7-year bond raised 2 billion yuan at 1.6714% with a 5.49x bid-to-cover.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Zhuque-2E Y7 rocket lifted off at 14:26 on Sept 15 from the Dongfeng commercial aerospace innovation test zone, placing 10 satellites of the Qianfan polar-orbit 19 group into their planned orbits. The flight test mission was declared a complete success, marking another batch deployment for the Qianfan constellation.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s A-share market reversed intraday gains on Monday, with the ChiNext Index closing down 1.15% and the Shanghai Composite off 0.54%. More than 4,300 stocks across the Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing exchanges ended lower, while turnover reached 1.63 trillion yuan. Wind power and semiconductor names bucked the trend, with Dajin Heavy Industry and TianShun Wind Power hitting the limit up.

TREE NEWS update: Qiushi magazine published an article by Xi Jinping drawn from his speech at a symposium on strengthening basic research. The article calls for long-term, stable funding and policy support, higher basic-research spending ratios, broader financing channels, and a diversified investment structure. It also urges AI-empowered basic research, intelligent research platforms, reformed evaluation and incentive systems, and stronger research integrity.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s commodity futures closed higher for energy and chemical products, with the main crude oil contract up more than 5% and ethylene glycol up over 4%. Fuel oil, staple fiber, LU fuel oil, bottle chip and asphalt each rose more than 2%. Container shipping’s Europe route, BR rubber, glass, lithium carbonate and PVC each fell more than 3%.

TREE NEWS reports: European equities opened lower, with the Euro Stoxx 50 down 0.4%. Germany’s DAX slipped 0.1%, the UK’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3% and France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.4% at the open.

TREE NEWS reports: Investors expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next week for the first time in three years, with markets now pricing at least three cumulative hikes by June, up from two previously. August core CPI came in stronger than expected and oil prices rose on Persian Gulf tensions, making a hold harder. Officials are divided on whether one 25-basis-point move suffices, with quarterly economic projections seen as a key signal.

TREE NEWS reports: The British pound fell 0.3% against the US dollar to 1.3464. The move leaves sterling lower on the session as the pair trades at that level.

TREE NEWS reports: Vietnam’s benchmark VN Index rose 1% to 1,806.25. The move extends the index’s advance, with the level marking the latest reading for the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange’s main gauge.

TREE NEWS update: Hubei province will raise the loss tolerance rate for seed funds investing in the “0 to 1” stage from 50% to 80%, with a maximum tolerance of 100% for a single project, the provincial finance department said at a press conference on fiscal-financial coordination for tech innovation. The province will also exempt early-stage funds from revenue-based performance assessments, judging them instead on the number and quality of seed projects cultivated.