Japan to boost coal-fired power as Mideast war causes energy turmoil
TOKYO: Japan's government plans to temporarily lift restrictions on coal-fired power plants as it seeks to ease an energy crunch caused by the Middle East war, officials said on Friday (Mar 27).Officials presented the plan at a meeting of a panel of experts, who approved the proposal, the indus ...
MAS and SBMA leading new working group to develop Singapore as a regional gold trading centre
Kwan Wei Kevin Tan - Singapore is taking steps to develop itself as an Asia-Pacific gold trading centre via a Gold Market Development Working Group led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Bullion Market Association (SBMA). In a joint statement released on March 27, the MAS and SBMA said the wo ...
AI runs on chips but is built on aluminium
Frankie Ho - If chips and algorithms are the brains behind AI, aluminium is the metal quietly holding everything else together. While it does not feature in semiconductors themselves, the lightweight metal is embedded across the infrastructure that supports AI. Touted for their durability and strength, aluminium ...
Singapore ramps up push to become Asia-Pacific’s gold trading hub amid rising investor demand
Ranamita Chakraborty - Plans are under way to develop gold-related capital market products to facilitate price discovery and build liquidity
Singapore ramps up push to become Asia’s gold trading hub amid rising investor demand
Ranamita Chakraborty - Plans are underway to develop gold-related capital market products to facilitate price discovery and build liquidity
Winter is coming: Singapore Inc’s moment of truth
Lee Ooi Keong - Singapore closed 2025 with full-year GDP growth of 4.8% — its strongest performance since the post-pandemic rebound and above the government’s own forecast — with the final quarter accelerating to 5.7%, driven by a record surge in semiconductor output and pharmaceutical exports. The Straits Ti ...
Singapore petrol prices dip after weeks of increases fuelled by Iran war
[SINGAPORE] After climbing steadily for three weeks, petrol prices in Singapore have begun to ease, with pump rates dipping over the past...
As the war drags on, is it time for investors here to ‘dig in’?
Chew Sutat - When Japanese torpedoes sped towards US ships moored at Pearl Habor and dragged the US into World War Two, their respective diplomats in Washington were still in talks. At the March 19 meeting at the White House between Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and President Donald Trump, the latter w ...
Why Hongkong Land acquired a 10.8% stake in Suntec REIT at a premium to market
Goola Warden - On March 19, Hongkong Land Holdings (HKL) announced that it acquired a 10.8% interest in Suntec REIT from ESR Group for $541 million. The assets of interest to HKL are Suntec REIT’s one-third interest in both Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC Towers 1 & 2) and One Raffles Quay (ORQ), the same ...
Southeast Asia’s challenges in managing downside risks
Manu Bhaskaran - The war in Iran has reached the one-month mark, and there are tentative signs of a negotiated end. Whether it actually concludes or not, this is a good moment to look beyond the confusion of daily headlines and consider its broader implications. We see it as a watershed event that will reshape how o ...
Investing in brilliant, good, bad and ugly times
Andrew Sheng - What a difference a day makes. A fortnight ago, when I was looking at investing in yen assets as a hedge against geopolitical turbulence, the mainstream scenario then was a stable world economy with peace under negotiation. On Feb 28, the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, killing Ayatoll ...
Will Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, be proven right?
Nirgunan Tiruchelvam - Paul Ehrlich, who died last week at the age of 93, was a doomsayer who was proven wrong. He was a biology professor at Stanford University, whose fame went beyond the classroom. Though he was born in middle-class circumstances in Philadelphia, Ehrlich’s work focused on the wretched of the earth. H ...
Maybank initiates ‘buy’ call for Seatrium
Lin Daoyi - As the Middle East conflict drags on, affecting the global supply of oil and gas, reports have emerged of nations implementing measures to curb energy use including work-from-home mandates and curtailing aviation activities. Facing fuel shortages, countries are increasingly focusing on securing reli ...
How Microsoft is rebuilding the economics of AI from the chip up
Nurdianah Md Nur - At a sufficient scale, building AI on top of third-party silicon becomes a structural problem. Compute is expensive, supply is constrained and others set the pricing. Every hyperscaler running large AI workloads faces some version of this constraint. Microsoft has spent nearly a decade engineering a ...
Why the Mac Mini is out of stock: A look at Singapore’s OpenClaw buzz
David Li Zuowei - A new AI agent has taken the world by storm. Is this a new hype cycle or the start of a tech...
Winking Studios to acquire Studios Ampera and appoints gaming industry veteran as Chief Revenue Officer
Teo Zheng Long - Winking Studio (SGX: WKS ) announces that it has entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire Studios Ampera, which is a Quebec-based studio founded by Claude Bordeleau, formerly a senior leader of Keywords Studios. Upon completion, Claude will be appointed as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) for W ...
JP Morgan downgrades Keppel to neutral with lower price target
The Edge Singapore - On March 27, JP Morgan issued a report downgrading Keppel to neutral from overweight, cutting its end-2026 target of $13.10 to a June-2027 target of $12.00. The eight-week extension for the M1-Simba completion and volatile geopolitical backdrop may point to delays in Keppel’s monetisation plans. ...
Accelerating Asean’s next decade of growth
Gilbert Ng - Asean integration has never been short on ambition. Over the past two decades, progress has been made through trade agreements, regulatory alignment and cross-border initiatives that have steadily lowered barriers to commerce and investment and boosted competitiveness. Initiatives such as the Asean ...
Preparing for your first trip to China
Daryl Guppy - For many months, China has remained as a centre of stability in an increasingly unstable world. The business world is increasingly recognising this, and as noted over previous weeks, there is a flood of business people flying to China to renew old contacts or as first-timers looking to make new busi ...
Nikkei poised for fourth weekly loss as Mideast war spurs risk-off mood
[TOKYO] Japan’s Nikkei share average fell on Friday, and was on track for a fourth straight weekly decline, as fading hopes for...
GXS Bank: The strategy behind a digital-first bank
Raphael Lim - 1. What makes GXS Bank different from traditional banks, and what is one misconception people commonly have about digital banks in Singapore? GXS Bank is a technology-led digital bank, bringing together the strengths of human expertise and empathy with new technologies, such as AI, that can help us ...
Asian stocks extend global rout; bonds hammered as war drags on
SYDNEY: Asian stock markets were swept up in a global rout on Friday (Mar 27), tracking Wall Street lower as the threat of a protracted energy shock out of the war-torn Middle East sent borrowing costs spiralling higher.Investors took a modicum of comfort from United States President Donald Trump� ...
Gold set for fourth weekly fall as Middle East war boosts rate-hike bets
Bullion has fallen more than 2% so far this week
Crude oil and market volatility: what investors need to know
Hei Tung Sam - Crude oil, also known as “Black Gold”, has played a significant role in advancing human civilisation. It has powered economies during times of peace, albeit highly contested during periods of conflict. Crude oil, as a commodity, has contributed to the rise of nations but the decline of others. T ...
Understanding price and value in the context of investing, Part 1
Thiveyen Kathirrasan - There are many ways to describe the idea of investing, but two concepts usually stand out. They are the price and the value of the investment. It is essential that investors understand what each concept means individually and how they relate to one another to make potentially better investment decis ...
Trump’s tariffs will loom large over the US midterms, whatever happens in Iran
Shawn Donnan / Bloomberg Businessweek - As any student of American history could tell you, tariffs can be politically deadly. US President John Quincy Adams was turfed out the same year he signed into law what became known as the “tariff of abominations.” During William McKinley’s stint as a Republican representative from Ohio, his ...
Chinese fast fashion brand to take over mega Hong Kong H&M store
For global labels in the city, the competition from mainland retailers represents a fresh challenge
Australian, NZ dollars hit two-month trough as global outlook darkens
[SYDNEY] The Australian and New Zealand dollars were pinned near two-month lows on Friday as fears of a lengthy energy shock from...
China, Japan and India drive long-term gold prices, says WGC's Tait
Ravinyaa Ravimalar and Kuek Ser Kwang Zhe - David Tait shut down Credit Suisse’s gold trading business when he was its global head of macro products group in 2014. Never did he think he would take the helm of the World Gold Council (WGC) as CEO five years later and become a proponent of gold as a strategic investment asset on the back of in ...
Cyclone triggers outages at major Australian LNG plants
The two affected gas plants collectively supply more than five per cent of the world's liquefied natural gas, according to Chevron figures.
Chocolate shrinkflation: Upstream, midstream or downstream, who can better pass on costs to their customers?
Lin Daoyi - From 2023 onwards, if consumers think that their favourite chocolate treat has shrunk and become more costly, they may not be wrong. The International Cacao Organisation (ICCO) noted in its August 2023 report the possibility of “chocolate shrinkflation”. Shrinkflation is the phenomenon in which ...
US judge blocks Pentagon's Anthropic blacklisting for now
March 26 : A U.S. judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker's high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic's lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary ...
Dollar rides haven demand as Middle East talks ring hollow
HONG KONG, March 27 : The dollar pushed higher toward multi-month peaks on Friday as investors sought safety in the shadow of an intensifying Middle East war and mounting doubts over any path to de-escalation. Markets were on edge following another rollercoaster week as U.S. President Donald Trump a ...
Dollar cashes in on safe-haven demand, set for best month since July
LONDON, March 27 : The dollar headed for its strongest monthly gain in almost a year on Friday, driven by investors seeking safety as the Middle East war intensifies and hopes of de-escalation fade.Markets were on edge after another volatile week as U.S. President Donald Trump again extended a deadl ...
