EQUITIES
Asian stocks retreat
Most Asian equities fell as traders await US and European central bank meetings this week for further clues on their policy outlook for next year. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average retreated from a 26-year high, and Hong Kong and Chinese shares slipped, after US stock indices hit fresh highs overnight. Most major US gauges advanced, led by more than 1 percent increases in media, telephone and technology-hardware shares. Investors shrugged off a non-fatal explosion in New York in what was called a terrorist attack. Volumes remained lackluster ahead of the year’s final US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank meetings. The focus at the conclusion of the Fed’s two-day meeting will be its outlook for next year, with investors debating the impact of coming policy normalization on global asset markets. Outgoing Fed Chair Janet Yellen is expected to signal today more interest-rate increases to come next year after raising the central bank’s benchmark by a quarter of a percentage point.
INTERNET
SE Asia sees rapid growth
Southeast Asia’s Internet economy, spanning online travel to ride-hailing, is forecast to reach US$50 billion this year, putting it on a solid trajectory to grow fourfold by 2025, a joint research report by Google and Temasek Holdings released yesterday showed. As more consumers buy airline tickets and book hotels through smartphones, the region’s online travel market expanded from US$19.1 billion in 2015 to US$26.6 billion this year, the report said. Online shopping and ride-hailing have come into focus as Grab, Uber Technologies Inc and Go-Jek capture consumer preferences with evolving business models. Of the US$12 billion of capital invested in Southeast Asian Internet companies since last year, US$9 billion was raised by its unicorns, or start-ups with more than US$1 billion valuations. The region, which includes Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, raised just US$1 billion in 2015.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple buying Shazam
Apple Inc has agreed to buy music-identification service Shazam, taking ownership of one of the first apps to demonstrate the power of the iPhone, recognizing songs after hearing just a few bars of a tune. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a person familiar with the situation said Apple is paying about US$400 million for the UK-based start-up. That would be one of Apple’s largest acquisitions ever, approaching the size of its 1996 purchase of Next Computer Inc, which brought cofounder Steve Jobs back to the company.
AVIATION
Boeing boosts dividends
Boeing Co is handing out more goodies to investors already flush from the company’s leap this year to the top of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The quarterly dividend is to rise 20 percent to US$1.71 a share, Boeing said in a statement on Monday, almost doubling analyst expectations. Directors also authorized US$18 billion in share buybacks, up from a US$14 billion program they put in place a year ago. The richer rewards bolster the plane maker’s efforts to win over investors with its pledge to return cash gains to shareholders. The company’s factories are also operating in higher gear as it tries to profit from a record order backlog, which provides a cushion from the cyclical market swings that have hurt other industrial giants such as General Electric Co.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last