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.

Law Minister K Shanmugam's Facebook post was a response to a Wall Street Journal article about US President Joe Biden commuting the death sentences of 37 inmates Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said on Sunday that personal feelings are "set aside" to protect the majority of people in Singapore when it comes to the death penalty.

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

WITH uncertainty swirling around the outlook for inflation and interest rates, there’s been one dependable catalyst keeping Wall Street’s spirits lifted: Corporate America’s bottom line. Read more at The Business Times.

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

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.

The weak pace of loan growth is a worry, particularly for regional lenders.

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.