In today’s briefing:
- Are Global Airlines Cooking Their Books?
- Ohayo Japan | US Stocks Climb
- Oncology Will Continue to Dominate
- Strong ASEAN Banks Poised Well to Face Uncertain Rate Outlook
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Are Global Airlines Cooking Their Books?
- Airlines are among biggest accounting manipulators worldwide, AI tool shows
- Airlines are more assertively managing their accounting as they struggle to reinvigorate profits hurt by Covid-19 pandemic
- Chinese, Asian carriers have highest risk scores for accounting manipulation
Ohayo Japan | US Stocks Climb
- US stocks rallied on Tuesday with the Nasdaq Composite leading, up 1.6% on upbeat earnings.
- Speculation swirls on timing of next BOJ rate hike as policymakers gather for two-day meeting starting Thursday.
- Mitsui joins a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the UAE, investing in a $7 billion venture to produce 10 million tons annually, about 15% of Japan’s demand.
Oncology Will Continue to Dominate
- In 2022, there were 20 million new cancer cases, and almost half of the cases were recorded in Asia.
- Global oncology spend is forecast to grow at 11.99% between 2023 and 2027, and this is expected to be almost three times faster than the growth of total pharma spend.
- Emerging companies continue to make big strides in oncology drug development and made up 71% of the new drug pipeline in 2022.
Strong ASEAN Banks Poised Well to Face Uncertain Rate Outlook
- The strong showing of economic data from the US for the first three months of 2024 has spurred bets that the Federal Reserve’s is going to delay cutting rates towards the latter half of this year.
- The narrative surrounding ‘imminent’ rate cuts that dominated market perception near the end of last year has been thwarted by the Fed’s chair Jerome Powell suggesting that rates are likely to remain elevated, without the market completely discounting the possibility of further rate hikes.
- The immediate fallout from the higher-than-expected March inflation figures led to a systematic drop in Asian currencies, especially for some ASEAN based currencies, such as the Malaysian Ringgit, that have already been embattled by weakening currency against the dollar since the start of this year.