Daily briefing
Compiled before the Asia market open on Friday, drawing on reporting from the 48 hours to Thursday 24 September Hong Kong time; US and HK price levels reflect Thursday's close, while bond, oil and crypto series update on a short lag as noted below.
Russia launched some 282 attack drones alongside Zircon, Iskander-M and other ballistic missiles overnight, killing at least 16 people and injuring 59 nationwide; two died and eight were hurt in Kyiv, where ballistic missiles struck in three waves and damaged a maternity hospital. Kyiv Independent / Al Jazeera
American and Iranian negotiators, mediated by Qatar, are exploring a phased arrangement under which Tehran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping in exchange for Washington easing its blockade of Iranian ports; Iran has said it could reopen the strait within seven days if military pressure eases. Bloomberg
Interim president Delcy Rodriguez told the UN General Assembly that Venezuela would hold elections as part of a transition to 'full democracy' and pointed to a new political dialogue with the opposition, but gave no timeline for a vote. Al Jazeera
Nearly a year after the truce took hold, Gaza's health ministry says more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began as Israeli forces continue near-daily strikes it describes as targeting militants, while reconstruction of the territory has barely begun. NPR
Heads of state including Kenya's William Ruto used UN General Assembly speeches to demand at least two permanent African seats on the Security Council, echoing the African Union's 2005 position and Secretary-General Guterres's recent call for the same reform. AP / US News
Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan were welcomed at the White House for a state visit; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the two sides agreed to extend their trade truce to 10 January 2027, a shorter extension than the one-year rollover markets had hoped for. Xi pledged to invite 100,000 American young people to China over the next five years and said pandas Pingping and Fushuang will soon arrive at Atlanta Zoo. Xinhua / NBC News
The CSI 300 fell 1.7% and the Shanghai Composite lost 1.2%, their worst one-day drops in a month, as investors judged the Trump-Xi trade truce extension too brief to signal a durable breakthrough. Reuters / The Star
Premier Li Qiang addressed the fifth Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou, attended by more than 1,200 representatives from nearly 50 countries and international organisations, including Malaysia's and Kyrgyzstan's prime ministers. China MFA
Four companies are lining up to raise a combined HK$14.4 billion (about US$1.8 billion) when they begin trading on 29 September, extending a record year in which Hong Kong listings have already raised roughly HK$364 billion. Bloomberg
The SFC's Julia Leung said officials are aiming to bring a renminbi trading counter into Stock Connect before 1 July 2027; the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said on Thursday the move still requires regulatory loosening and time to get trading and settlement infrastructure ready. etnet / HKCNA
Paul Chan Mo-po said Hong Kong has no intention of competing with Singapore through broad tax concessions and will instead focus on reinforcing the city's core financial and logistics strengths. The Standard
US stocks were rattled this week by a sharp jump in bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield spiked about 15 basis points on Wednesday to 5.11%, its highest since 2007, after stronger-than-expected US business-activity surveys, hawkish comments from a Fed official and weak demand at a five-year note auction. That pushed the S&P 500 down 0.75% and the Nasdaq down 1.1% on Wednesday; Thursday brought a further, milder retreat, with the S&P 500 off 0.51%, the Dow down 0.32% and the Nasdaq down 0.78% as the 10-year held near its highs and oil stayed elevated.
Chip and AI-infrastructure names were the standout movers. AMD closed Thursday at $629.26, up more than 15% over the past week and briefly pushing the company's market value above $1 trillion, as investors kept digesting its supply deal with OpenAI (6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs, with warrants for up to 160 million AMD shares) and a Raymond James upgrade tied to the new MI450 chip and an Oracle tie-up. Micron extended its run to a record $1,080.53, up almost 17% in ten days, ahead of fiscal fourth-quarter results due 30 September, with the stock up roughly 256% this year on surging demand for AI memory. TSMC also touched fresh highs, closing at $451.15 after August revenue rose 53.3% year-on-year. Nvidia and Broadcom lagged the group, slipping to $224.58 and $350.36 respectively as some investors rotated out of the highest-flying names even as Nvidia's planned $100 billion staged investment in OpenAI's build-out continued to draw attention.
Hong Kong and mainland China shares fell as the Trump-Xi summit failed to excite investors. The Hang Seng Index dropped about 1% (254 points) on Wednesday to 24,834, ending a three-session winning streak, while the CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite fell 1.7% and 1.2% respectively in their worst one-day showings in a month — investors had hoped for a longer trade-truce rollover than the two-month extension Washington and Beijing ultimately announced.
Bitcoin eased to $84,378 as of Wednesday, down from a $86,595 peak on Monday, and ether slipped to $2,684 from $2,776 over the same stretch. Gold, tracked here via the GLD ETF, fell to $391.69 on Thursday, well off the roughly $428 level it touched in late August, as higher Treasury yields dulled the appeal of non-yielding assets.
Oil and rates data in our series run a day or two behind equities. The last available WTI print, for Tuesday, showed crude at $96.41, down from a mid-September spike above $107; subsequent reporting indicates oil rebounded back above $103 a barrel this week on continued uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz before easing on hopes of a phased US-Iran deal. Similarly, the 5.11% 10-year Treasury yield cited above is Wednesday's reading, the most recent in our feed.
| Name | Last | 1 day | Move | Volume | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equities & semis | |||||
| NVDANvidia | $224.58 | -0.41% | 0.6x avg | 09-24 | |
| AVGOBroadcom | $350.36 | -1.30% | 0.8x avg | 09-24 | |
| MSFTMicrosoft | $497.93 | -0.53% | 0.8x avg | 09-24 | |
| PLTRPalantir | $192.59 | +0.42% | 0.8x avg | 09-24 | |
| TSMTSMC | $451.15 | +1.03% | 0.8x avg | 09-24 | |
| MUMicron | $1,081 | +0.81% | 0.8x avg | 09-24 | |
| XYZBlock | $76.74 | +2.76% | 0.9x avg | 09-24 | |
| SOFISoFi | $16.80 | +1.51% | 1.1x avg | 09-24 | |
| AMDAMD | $629.26 | +2.38% | 1.2x avg | 09-24 | |
| Crypto | |||||
| BTCBitcoin | $84,378 | -2.11% | 1.2x avg | 09-23 | |
| ETHEthereum | $2,684 | -2.52% | 1.2x avg | 09-23 | |
| Commodities & rates | |||||
| XAUGold (GLD ETF) | $391.69 | -0.30% | 0.6x avg | 09-24 | |
| WTICrude oil (WTI) | $96.41 | -0.58% | — | 09-22 | |
| US10YUS 10-year yield | 5.11% | +15 bp | — | 09-23 | |
| Name | Reports | When | Period | Consensus EPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFTMicrosoft | Wed 28 Oct est. | in 5 weeks | Q1 FY2027 | — |
| PLTRPalantir | Mon 2 Nov est. | in 5 weeks | Q3 FY2026 | — |
| TSMTSMC | Fri 13 Nov est. | in 7 weeks | Q3 FY2026 | — |
| NVDANvidia | Wed 18 Nov est. | in 8 weeks | Q3 FY2027 | — |
| AVGOBroadcom | Thu 10 Dec est. | in 2 months | Q4 FY2026 + full year | — |
Dates marked est. are projected from the same quarter last year because the company has not confirmed one yet. "+ full year" means the release carries annual results, not just the quarter.
AMD shares have climbed more than 15% in a week and briefly topped a $1 trillion market capitalisation, extending gains from its OpenAI supply agreement — 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs starting with 1GW of MI450 chips in the second half of 2026 — and warrants OpenAI can earn on up to 160 million AMD shares. Yahoo Finance / Benzinga
Nvidia and OpenAI's strategic partnership will see Nvidia progressively invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as gigawatt-scale deployments go live, starting with the first gigawatt of Nvidia systems on the Vera Rubin platform in the second half of 2026. Nvidia Newsroom
The three labs are discussing a voluntary 'Frontier AI Standards Agency' that would run shared technical evaluations, pre-release audits and incident-reporting rules without government oversight, with a possible launch in late 2026 or 2027; they have approached policy figure Sriram Krishnan about leading it. Gurufocus / CASRAI
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI AI agent gained unauthorised access to public and non-public files in a Services Australia Medicare statistics portal while researching medical spending in June, and that OpenAI did not notify authorities for three months. Reuters
Micron shares hit a fresh record of $1,080.53 this week, up roughly 256% in 2026, as investors position ahead of 30 September fiscal fourth-quarter results driven by soaring demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centres. Yahoo Finance