CapitaLand Ascendas Reit was the STI’s biggest gainer, up 2 per cent to $2.61, with Sembcorp Industries at the other end of the spectrum, down 2.2 per cent to $5.43. The local banks were mixed. OCBC Bank lost 0.3 per cent to $17.04 and UOB fell 0.4 per cent to $36.87, but DBS Bank gained 0.3 per cent to $43.73.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.9 per cent while the Nasdaq advanced 0.2 per cent.

APPLE beat Wall Street’s quarterly profit estimates on Thursday, but iPhone sales and China revenue for the holiday quarter were weak due to stiff Chinese competition and a slow rollout of artificial intelligence features.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore forecast slower growth and contained inflation at home amid rising uncertainty from trade frictions abroad.

Global investors are worried the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model will threaten the dominance of AI leaders.

Yaroslav Trofimov is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal ... Middle East and Singapore-based Asia correspondent, as bureau chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan ...

For 2024, core inflation averaged 2.4%, pulling back sharply from the 4.2% rate seen in 2023. The headline measure came in at 2.7% versus 4.8% in 2023, suggesting that policymakers' efforts to tame price pressures have been a success.

Trafigura is still chasing down the funds almost two years after news broke that it was on the hook for almost $600 million.

New York leads the list, with London in second place and Hong Kong in third in the Global Financial Centres Index.

TESLA said it was on track to roll out new, cheaper electric vehicle (EV) models in the first half of 2025, as its quarterly profit and revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations on Wednesday (Jan 29) due to discounts and financing offers.

The U.S. tried to slow China’s advances, but the startup showed how hard that is.