UPS company deploys AI to spot fakes amid surge in holiday returns
LOS ANGELES, Dec 18 : Nearly one in every 10 retail items that are returned for a refund in the U.S. is fraudulent, according to a UPS-owned reverse logistics company that says it plans to combat the $76.5 billion problem for the country’s retailers with artificial intelligence. This holiday seas ...
Meta's Yann LeCun targets $3.5 billion valuation for new AI startup, FT reports
Dec 18 : Meta's outgoing chief artificial intelligence scientist Yann LeCun is holding early talks to raise 500 million euros ($586.00 million) for a new startup that would value the AI firm at about 3 billion euros ahead of its official launch, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.The repo ...
US crypto industry cheers 2025 wins, but party may fizzle next year
Dec 18 : After celebrating Donald Trump's second presidential term by swilling cocktails and partying to Snoop Dogg at a pre-inauguration event in January, the crypto industry went on to notch major legislative and regulatory victories this year.But the party may not continue into 2026.Among th ...
Singapore industrial market set for ‘uneven growth’ in 2026
Ry-Anne Lim - High-spec, high-tech industrial space in demand, but occupiers growing more cost-conscious and older assets face pressure
Japan's Sumitomo Realty puts India bet on Mumbai and serviced apartments
MUMBAI, Dec 18 : Japan's Sumitomo Realty and Development, the country's third-largest developer, plans to expand in India with an unusual strategy: focusing on Mumbai and managing apartments rather than selling them, executives told Reuters.Japanese developers are extending their presence ...
Coal burrows on
The Edge Singapore - Resources Global Development bets on shipping and coal mining as twin engines to capture Indonesia’s growth story Over the years, coal has increasingly fallen out of favour, given its reputation as a dirty fuel. More and more investors thumbed their nose at this fossil fuel when the financial indu ...
Five Singapore business leaders look back on 2025
Helmi Yusof - Key figures in industries from finance and F&B to live music and art reflect on the challenging year they faced
Japan, Indonesia sign agreement on local currency transactions
JAKARTA, Dec 18 : Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama and Indonesian central bank governor Perry Warjiyo signed a memorandum of cooperation to encourage the use of local currencies in all bilateral transactions, Bank Indonesia said on Thursday.The deal, effective from December 15, renewed ...
Hong Leong Asia ‘undervalued’ on ex-cash basis with growth tailwinds, says RHB
Felicia Tan - Hong Leong Asia is “undervalued” on an ex-cash basis, says RHB Bank Singapore analyst Shekhar Jaiswal in an unrated Dec 16 report. While the company’s headline P/E multiple appears elevated, the metric overstates the company’s true valuation due to its large net cash balance, which is around ...
'China+1' strategy still workable amid Trump 2.0 tariffs, says HSBC
Kwan Wei Kevin Tan - Is the “China+1” strategy sustainable amid Trump 2.0's tariff dynamics? HSBC seems to think so. According to the bank’s economists Yun Liu, Aris Dacanay, Pranjul Bhandari, Aayushi Chaudhary and Madhurima Nag, Asean countries have been China’s largest trading partner since 2020, edging o ...
Thailand says Cambodia border fight is also a war on scammers
Thai forces have neutralised at least six scam-related facilities – which it also refers to as casinos
Singapore stocks track Wall Street declines; STI down 0.1%
Tan Nai Lun - Across the broader market, losers beat gainers 286 to 236, as 883.5 million securities worth S$1.1 billion change hands
BlueSG disposes old EVs ahead of relaunch in 2026
LTA blocks the transfer of Bluecars to Tribecar due to EV Sharing Scheme restrictions
Long after the bell — what happens next?
Jerry Chua - For many founders, an initial public offering (IPO) is imagined as a moment of arrival. A symbolic crossing from private ambition into public validation, marked by a ringing bell, a brief flurry of attention and the sense that a long chapter of effort has reached its natural conclusion. Yet in pract ...
Taiwan central bank raises growth forecast on AI-driven export boom
TAIPEI, Dec 18 : Taiwan's central bank on Thursday raised its economic growth forecast for the year due to booming exports of tech goods to the United States, driving a yawning trade surplus while keeping its benchmark interest rate unchanged. Taiwan's role as a major producer of ...
Taiwan central bank raises growth forecast, keeps rates unchanged
TAIPEI, Dec 18 : Taiwan's central bank on Thursday raised its economic growth forecast for the year due to booming exports while keeping its benchmark interest rate unchanged, as expected. Taiwan's role as a major producer of advanced semiconductors powering the artificial intelligenc ...
There is an elephant in the tin boom
Nirgunan Tiruchelvam - An elephant that went missing in Malaya in the 1840s may inspire investors in 2026. In the 1840s, Long Jaafar, a Malay chieftain in Perak, went on a jungle expedition. This was long before the Range Rover era. Elephants were the main mode of transport. Though the jungles were thick and lush, they we ...
Robbers steal one billion yen in Hong Kong daylight heist
The city has seen a spate of robberies involving exchange shops recently
Despite tariffs, China consumer giants push into the US as domestic market stalls
Pop Mart CEO attributes this to the American market being enormous, with strong purchasing power
India's AM Green and Japan's Mitsui explore potential investment, offtake for green aluminium
Dec 18 : India's AM Green and Japan's Mitsui & Co have signed a non-binding agreement to explore a potential investment in the former's green aluminium business, the companies said on Thursday.AM Green, backed by the founders of clean energy firm Greenko Group, is building a 1 mil ...
J-REITs on the rebound and Japanese firms face shareholder pressure to divest real estate holdings: Aprea report
Jovi Ho - 2025 saw the return of rental growth in supply-constrained cities, renewed confidence in listed REITs and rising demand for assets aligned with decarbonisation and digital infrastructure. Few markets surprised investors more in 2025 than Japan, according to a new report by Asia Pacific Real Assets A ...
Micron surges on upbeat profit forecast as chip prices soar
Dec 18 : Micron Technology's shares rose 9 per cent in premarket trading on Thursday after the U.S. chipmaker delivered an outsized quarterly profit forecast, underscoring its leadership in the high-bandwidth memory chips market as prices surge.Micron is one of only three major suppliers of hig ...
Micron shares up 12% in Europe after blowout forecast
Dec 18 : Micron Technology's Frankfurt-listed shares soared almost 12 per cent in early European trading on Thursday following an upbeat forecast from the U.S. computer memory chip maker.Micron predicted second-quarter adjusted profit at nearly double Wall Street expectations, as prices soar fo ...
Elliott woos other Toyota Industries investors in buyout fight
Paul Singer’s activist fund tells the investors the proposal undervalues the firm
University of Nottingham Malaysia rolls out AI agent for student recruitment
Nurdianah Md Nur - Prospective students at the University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) can now use an AI agent, NOVA (Nottingham Online Virtual Assistant), to get real-time answers on courses, scholarships and accommodation, and to book adviser calls or campus tours. Powered by Salesforce’s Agentforce, NOVA builds o ...
Elliott woos other Toyota Industries investors in buyout fight, Bloomberg News reports
Dec 18 : Elliott Investment Management has been approaching asset managers and other institutional investors in Japan to push Toyota group to improve its $30 billion bid to take Toyota Industries private, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not i ...
Thai central bank proposes controls on gold trade, ready to cut rates further
BANGKOK: The Thai central bank is calling on the finance ministry to control gold trading after a surge in transactions helped drive up the value of the baht, its governor said on Thursday (Dec 18), adding that monetary policy could be further eased if needed after key rates were cut to a three-year ...
Google works to erode Nvidia’s software advantage with Meta’s help
The effort is part of Google’s aggressive plan to make its TPU a viable alternative to Nvidia’s GPUs
India insurance move opens pension firms to 100% foreign holding
The move comes amid a surge in foreign investment in Indian banks and deeper reliance on Indian tech hubs
Elliott takes over US$1 billion stake in Lululemon: source
The hedge fund is now one of the company’s biggest investors
South Korea digs deeper into intervention toolkit as won slides
The won has been Asia’s worst-performing currency in the second half of the year
Japan's JAPEX buys US tight oil and gas assets in $1.3 billion deal
TOKYO, Dec 18 : Japan Petroleum Exploration said on Thursday it will acquire Verdad Resources Intermediate Holdings LLC (VRIH), which owns tight oil and gas assets in the U.S. for $1.3 billion in its largest-ever deal.JAPEX will buy VRIH, which holds assets in Colorado and Wyoming, from Verdad Resou ...
StanChart, Ant International launch blockchain-based tokenised deposits in Singdollar, greenback
Shikhar Gupta - The new solution demonstrates how businesses can use blockchain technology to make transactions faster, more secure and more efficient
StanChart, Ant International launch blockchain-based tokenised deposits in SGD, USD
Shikhar Gupta - The new solution demonstrates how businesses can use blockchain technology to make transactions faster, more secure, and more efficient
