Singapore stocks took a beating last week amid the twin uncertainties of the United States election and the worsening pandemic in the West, almost replacing Thailand as Asia’s worst equity market this year. The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 1.1 per cent last Friday, taking its decline so far this year to 24.95 per cent, […]

HANGZHOU • After helping more than a million brick-and-mortar Chinese retailers modernise their operations, Alibaba has now set its sights on a new target: the country’s outdated factories. In September, China’s largest corporation unveiled its first smart factory, a secret experiment it had been conducting for three years on the outskirts of its home town […]

PODCAST Fate of Singapore aviation sector Aviation analyst Shukor Yusof from Endau Analytics talks about whether Singapore Airlines can fly high once again. str.sg/aviation-sector

Money managers in Asia are deploying a range of traditional and unconventional strategies to cushion any losses as they brace themselves for turbulence in the lead-up to and aftermath of the United States presidential election. Chinese equities feature high in some recommendations on expectations that the vote will have a limited impact on Asian assets, […]

For people who are 40 and above today, the quality of your life is to a large extent the cumulative effect of important decisions in your life. Of course, luck plays a part as well. So, are there ways to ensure that we by and large make sound and rational decisions that also minimise the […]

For people who are 40 and above today, the quality of your life is to a large extent the cumulative effect of important decisions in your life. Of course, luck plays a part as well. So, are there ways to ensure that we by and large make sound and rational decisions that also minimise the […]

Less than a year into his new job at global shipping giant Maersk, fleet superintendent Benny Lim was presented with a major problem: a vessel he was managing broke down in South America. It was stuck there for almost a week and Mr Lim did 12-hour shifts in rotation with a colleague to troubleshoot with […]

Q: I heard a retrenchment exercise is coming up in my company. What should I do? Is it better to resign or be retrenched? A: If it is hearsay, do not jump to conclusions, says a spokesman for the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP). Please subscribe or log in to continue reading the full […]

HONG KONG – Summer may be over but the financial world is sizzling with an impending historic debut on Nov 5 of ground-breaking proportions. Chinese homegrown fintech giant Ant Group is not about to be listed in the London or New York stock exchanges. But it is about to break all initial public offering (IPO) […]

BEIJING (REUTERS) – China’s factory activity expanded at a slightly slower pace in October but was slightly above analysts’ expectations, suggesting a continuing economic recovery as the country rebounds from the coronavirus shock. The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) fell to 51.4 in October from 51.5 in September, data from the National Bureau of […]

NEW YORK (REUTERS) – US stock indexes closed lower on Friday (Oct 30) to cap Wall Street’s biggest weekly sell-off since March, as losses in richly priced tech heavyweights, a record rise in coronavirus cases and jitters over the presidential election snuffed investor sentiment. The pandemic pushed US hospitals to the brink of capacity as […]

Bank lending last month dipped for the seventh straight session on weaker business loans, preliminary data from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) showed yesterday. Loans through the domestic banking unit – which captures lending in all currencies, but reflects mainly Singapore-dollar lending – stood at $677.46 billion in September, compared with $677.86 billion a […]

HONG KONG • Hong Kong’s economy showed the first signs of emerging from a crippling recession sparked by political unrest last year and deepened by the global pandemic. Gross domestic product (GDP) declined 3.4 per cent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the government announced yesterday, better than the median estimate of a […]

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) – Dr Shi Xu once said that financial stability and job security were the two dreams he and his wife had when they moved to Singapore from China in the early 1990s. After almost three decades, they have become billionaires with the listing of their company, Nanofilm Technologies International. The provider of nanotechnology […]

SYDNEY (REUTERS) – A gauge of Asian shares fell for a third straight session on Friday (Oct 30) as jitters over upcoming US presidential elections and fears that the global economic downturn will persist enveloped markets, though the index was still set to end the month higher. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of […]

TOKYO (REUTERS) – Japan’s industrial output rose for the fourth straight month in September as the world’s third-largest economy continued to shake off the drag from the Covid-19 crisis largely thanks to improving external demand. Separate data on Friday (Oct 30) showed the September jobless rate held steady, while the number of available jobs per […]

SINGAPORE – Shares of Nanofilm Technologies International surged above its initial public offering (IPO) price in its debut on Friday (Oct 30), in Singapore’s biggest non-Reit listing in recent years. The stock was trading up 12.7 per cent at $2.92 from its IPO price of $2.59 as of 9.28am, with a hefty 65 million shares changing hands. […]

HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – Hong Kong’s economy is showing the first signs of emerging from a crippling recession sparked by political unrest last year and deepened by the global pandemic. After more than a year of weakness in multiple economic indicators, data this week showed exports from the Asian financial hub surged the most in […]

HONG KONG (REUTERS) – Standard Chartered said third-quarter profit slid 40 per cent on higher credit impairment resulting from the coronavirus pandemic and lower interest rates, although a tighter rein on costs helped it beat expectations. Underlying pretax profit came in at US$745 million for the three months ended Sept 30, down from US$1.24 billion […]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – After the worst downturn on record, the US economy is expected to post jaw-dropping growth of between 30 and 35 per cent in the third quarter, but the headline number will obscure potential signs of trouble. With days before the Nov 3 election, President Donald Trump will almost certainly seize on the […]