Daily Buzz: 14 October 2026

Tencent Raises US$5.7 Billion in US-Dollar, Dim Sum Bond Sales

China tech giant Tencent Holdings raised about US$5.7 billion through sales of US dollar and offshore yuan debt offerings on Tuesday, drawing combined investor orders of more than US$23 billion. The strong demand came even ‌as high levels of spending on artificial intelligence are sending jitters through global markets. Tencent sold US$1.3 billion of 10-year and US$500 million of 20-year bonds in the US dollar market, and 20 billion yuan (US$3 billion) of 10-year and 6 billion yuan of 30-year offshore yuan, or dim sum, bonds, according to its term sheet. Tencent said it plans to use the proceeds for general operating purposes as it increases investment in AI infrastructure and products.

Saudis Deflect Attack Targeting Aramco Headquarters

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted Houthi missiles targeting the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, and launched a series of retaliatory strikes on an oil depot on the outskirts of Yemen's capital, which is controlled by the Iran-backed rebels. Global benchmark Brent crude futures were priced at about US$106 a barrel in late New York trading.

The latest Saudi attacks were in response to weekend Houthi strikes on the international airport in Riyadh that killed 13 people and left 300 injured. The airport is closed until at least Saturday. The Saudis intervened in the civil war between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government of Yemen in 2015, with a shaky UN-brokered ceasefire declared in 2022, which subsequently collapsed. Saudi military attempts to gain the upper hand have been hampered by the Houthis' advanced precision weaponry and guerrilla tactics.

Ukraine Accuses Russia of Repeatedly Violating Trump 'Truce'

Kiev accused Russia of six attacks on Ukraine's energy grid since US President Donald Trump announced the two countries had agreed to an "immediate" energy ceasefire, which neither side has officially confirmed. Trump waived sanctions on Russian energy exports in a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to sell 4 million tons of diesel to the US and global markets. That's equivalent to about 10 days of US domestic demand and little more than a single day of global demand. Trump wants Ukraine to stop attacks on Russia energy facilities that refine diesel in an attempt to lower record prices affecting manufacturing, farming and consumers ahead of critical American midterm elections on November 3. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his nation will stop attacks only if Russia does likewise. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Ukraine does not deserve the "respite" a ceasefire would bring. Trump claimed Putin is more willing to make a deal than Zelensky.

Pope Recovering After Lung Cancer Surgery

Pope Leo XIV, 71, is recovering in a Rome hospital after "successful" 90-minute surgery to remove part of his right lung found to have a cancerous growth, according to a statement from the Vatican. On Sunday, the pontiff said a nodule had been found on his lung during routine medical checks.

Top Business

Global Selloff in Chip Stocks Hits Asian Markets

A global selloff in semiconductor stocks swept across Asia on Tuesday, with South Korea's chip-heavy index plunging 5.5 percent and Japan's Nikkei falling 1.8 percent. In China, the Shenzhen Component Index lost 0.3 percent and the tech-heavy ChiNext retreated 0.2 percent. However, the Shanghai Composite Index and the Hang Seng Index eked out gains after small afternoon rallies. Shanghai closed up 0.1 percent and Hong Kong ended with a gain of 0.3 percent. The selloff in South Korea was exacerbated by Chinese chipmaker CXMT's unveiling of a new memory-cell design engineered to pack more storage into less physical space. The new, high-density 4F² dynamic random-access chip design threatens to intensify competition for major global rivals Samsung, SK Hynix and US-based Micron. Samsung shares plunged 7 percent, and SK Hynix dropped 10 percent. Despite its announcement, CXMT, China's largest maker of DRAM chips, tumbled 2.8 percent in Shanghai trading. Investor sentiment on semiconductor stocks wasn't helped by a warning from Broadcom's chief executive that heavy spending on AI amid uncertainty when it will pay off is increasingly looking like "casino" gambling.

China's CreditEase Defaults on Payments, Police Open Investigation

China wealth manager CreditEase Group warned it may be insolvent after defaulting on payments related to two affiliated investment platforms. Chinese media said outstanding payments are estimated at up to 50 billion yuan (US$7.5 billion). In a letter to investors published this week, CreditEase said losses across multiple businesses and weak proceeds from asset disposals had left it without sufficient funds to repay investors. A preliminary review by external financial advisers found the group may have more liabilities than assets. Beijing police have opened a criminal investigation into companies linked to the group, with CreditEase founder Tang Ning, his wife Zhao Mei and other suspects taken into custody. Yiren Digital, CreditEase's US-listed affiliate, said it operates independently and no direct link had been identified between its business and the investigation. Its New York shares nonetheless plunged 20 percent.

Four of Largest US Banks Post Higher Profits, Outlook on AI Positive

Four of the largest US banks kicked off the third-quarter earnings season with higher profits and a generally upbeat outlook on the investment boom in artificial intelligence. JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank, reported a 6 percent increase in profits from a year ago to US$15.3 billion, lower than market forecasts. The AI push is "very much still in effect," said the bank's Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum. "The capex is still getting spent. The deals still need to get done. There is a lot of financing to do and we're going to be in the middle of that." Goldman Sachs profit rose 33 percent to US$5.1 billion but fell 20 percent from the second quarter. The bank said strong equities trading outweighed slower activity in bond, currency and commodity trading. Goldman Chief Executive David Solomon said the trajectory of AI isn't known but the current period is a "very strong technology super cycle." Citigroup reported a 40 percent jump in profit to US$5.2 billion, and Wells Fargo posted a 6.5 percent increase to US$6 billion.

Separately, Bank of America, the nation's second-largest lender, was fined US$1.21 billion by the US government for "widespread failures" to properly police potential money laundering and other illicit activity. It was the third-largest fine in Treasury Department history.

China Car Sales Tumble 28 Percent, Exports Surge

Passenger vehicle sales in China last month fell 28 percent from a year earlier, the steepest drop this year, while exports soared 73 percent, accounting for more than half of sales at multiple domestic carmakers. Total car sales hit 1.6 million in September, a 4.9 percent gain from August, according to the China Passenger Car Association. Exports topped 923,000 units, a 3.1 percent increase from August. Sales of gasoline-powered cars dropped 43 percent in September as oil prices remained high globally. Sales of electric and hybrid autos soared 164 percent, comprising about 60 percent of all sales in the month. BYD, the largest Chinese carmaker, posted a 6.3 percent decline in global deliveries last month, with sales on the Chinese mainland falling by a quarter. The company led in exports, with shipments of 176,000 vehicles, followed by Chery Auto and Geely.

Nvidia's Share of China's AI Data Center Chip Market Falls

Nvidia's share of China's data center AI semiconductor market fell to 34 percent in the first half of 2026 on US chip export controls and rapidly rising competition from domestic companies like Huawei Technologies, research firm International Data reported. Nvidia's AI chip shipments to China, once a major market, fell 44 percent from a year earlier in the first six months to 678,000 units. By contrast, Huawei's AI chip shipments surged to 572,000 units from 300,000 units a year earlier, accounting for 28 percent of the Chinese mainland market, followed by Alibaba, Cambricon, Kunlunxin and Hygon. Nine of the 11 leading Chinese chipmakers increased shipments in a market that showed total shipments of 2 million units.

TikTok Chief Says Near-Term AI Hype Masks Future Potential

TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew told a Singapore conference that AI's short-term impact is being overestimated while its long-term potential remains under-appreciated. He predicted major scientific breakthroughs in physics, biotech, chemistry and materials science within two to three years, citing parent ByteDance's Protenix-v2 biomolecular model as evidence of the company's research push beyond consumer apps. Chew also warned about cybersecurity risks from autonomous AI agents and easier fraud enabled by more capable models. ByteDance's Seed AI research team announced plans on Tuesday to establish a dedicated department to strengthen AI safety, the first for a frontier AI laboratory in China.

Economy & Markets

CanSemi Tech Shares Rise in Debut on the ChiNext

Shares in CanSemi Technology, a wafer fabricator, rose 223 percent from their offer price in their first day of trading on Shenzhen's ChiNext board on Tuesday, following an initial public offering that raised 6.2 billion yuan (US$918.5 million). The Guangzhou-based company specializes in mature-node 300-millimeter wafer manufacturing serving automotive electronics, 5G and artificial intelligence. The company reported monthly wafer capacity rose to 63,300 wafers this year, and it began construction in January on a 25.2-billion-yuan facility to increase capacity to 120,000 wafers a month by the end of 2029. Its IPO was oversubscribed 2,360 times.

Akeso Announces US$255 Million Share Placement

Chinese pharma company Akeso announced a HK$2 billion (US$255 million) share placement priced at a discount of 6.9 percent to its Tuesday closing price on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The placement equals about 2.2 percent of existing issued share capital. Purchased shares will have a three-month lockup period. The proceeds will be allocated to research and development of new drugs in Akeso's pipeline.

Visa Gets Chinese Nod Toward Wholly Owned Bankcard Clearing

US payments giant Visa has won preliminary approval from China's central bank to establish the first wholly foreign-owned bank card clearing institution, paving the way for it to process domestic transactions independent of China UnionPay. The People's Bank of China approved Visa's application to begin preparations for the institution, which it must complete within one year before applying for permission to start operations.

Visa is the third international card network to secure regulatory clearance to enter China's domestic clearing market, following American Express and Mastercard, but those rivals operate through joint ventures with Chinese partners. UnionPay held a monopoly on bankcard clearing until China began opening the sector in 2015.

China's Futures Exchanges to Tighten Rules on Quant Trading

China's four futures exchanges will intensify a crackdown on malfeasance linked to program trading, according to proposed revisions released this week. The crackdown on quantitative trading, which uses algorithms to execute split-second transactions, affects exchanges in Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Dalian and Guangzhou, and covers six categories of violations, including false reporting of information, unauthorized high-frequency trading and internal control failures leading to major risks. The proposal also sets out penalties for violators.

IMF Says Global Economy Tests 'Limits of Resilience'

The global economy could soon be facing its "limits of resilience," as emergency oil stocks run low, government budgets become overstretched, inflation and the cost of borrowing rise, and public debt soars, the International Monetary Fund warned at its annual meeting with the World Bank in Bangkok. In its World Economic Report published on Tuesday, the IMF said many countries are left with little capacity to protect their consumers from rising energy costs. "Inventories in energy markets are dwindling, and additional geopolitical shocks could still transmit rapidly through prices and supply disruptions," it said, with "risks skewed to downside" for the global economy. The IMF also noted a continuing risk to the global economy of an AI-driven market crash.

Corporate

Roche, China's Rona Therapeutics Sign Licensing Deal

Swiss drugmaker Roche signed a licensing agreement valued at up to US$1.2 billion with Chinese biotech company ‌Rona Therapeutics for its obesity drug candidate. Roche has been racing to break ⁠into the booming obesity drug market dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Under the deal, Rona Therapeutics will receive an upfront payment of US$100 million, with milestone payments of up to US$1.1 ‌billion, in addition to royalties on global net sales.

BYD Says Its EU Work Force to Exceed 40,000 by 2030

BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li said at the Paris Motor Show that the company's European workforce will soon surpass 10,000 and will "definitely exceed 40,000" by 2030, making it one of the largest non-European employers in the European auto industry. BYD's recruitment plans include workers laid off by European carmakers. BYD's first European plant, located in Hungary, is expected to begin full operations in the current quarter, with plans for two additional factories, potentially in France and Spain. Chinese carmakers are accelerating local production in Europe to address EU controls on car imports.

Teamaker ChaPanda Suspends Trading Amid Probe

Chengdu-based bubble tea chain ChaPanda suspended trading in Hong Kong on Tuesday pending an investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission over alleged manipulation during its initial public offering in 2024. China's Jiemian news outlet reported that ChaPanda may have had secret contracts with some investors who made fake purchases of its shares. At the IPO, ChaPanda intended to raise HK$2.6 billion (US$329 million) but the offering was not fully subscribed at the start. Its shares fell 27 percent on their debut.

Miniso Reports Third-Quarter Growth

Miniso, a Chinese retailer and variety store chain that specializes in household and consumer goods, said third-quarter sales measured by gross merchandise value grew between 25 percent and 30 percent from a year earlier. Its proprietary Yoyo brand had gross merchandise value surpassing 1 billion yuan in the first nine months, with expansion to 53 countries.

LVMH Posts Weaker Sales on Slump in Chinese Consumer Sentiment

Luxury goods retailer LVMH reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter sales, with revenue dropping 5 percent, as a sharp deterioration in Chinese consumer sentiment hit demand for its flagship Louis Vuitton and Dior brands. Sales in Asia, dominated by China, fell 5 percent from a year earlier. Europe's leading luxury groups have lost around 330 billion euros (US$369 billion) in market value since the start of the year, with LVMH alone losing about 40 percent. Chinese consumers account for about a fifth of global luxury purchases.