Bitcoin slumps after the Chinese central bank’s warning. Covid breaks down Taiwan’s only line of defense. The race to succeed Jamie Dimon puts two women ahead of the pack. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
Singapore will stretch out its Covid vaccine supply by lengthening the time between doses to as much as eight weeks, a move that could see its entire adult population receive a first shot by the end of August. In Taiwan, cases have surged from zero to quadruple digits in just days: Here’s how complacency broke down its only line of defense. Thailand plans to borrow $22 billion to counter its worst coronavirus outbreak yet. Mumbai has reported about a quarter the number of deaths that New Delhi has suffered in India’s latest wave. And in the U.S., rural counties significantly lag urban ones in vaccine coverage while Texas has banned local governments and schools from mandating mask-wearing.
Asian stocks on Wednesday are set to track U.S. declines as concern about faster inflation shadows the economic recovery from the pandemic. A dollar gauge was near the lowest level this year. Futures slipped in Japan and Australia and U.S. futures dipped as they opened in Asia. A slide in crude on the possibility of more supply from Iran hurt energy stocks. The dollar retreated further and Treasury yields dipped. Markets are closed Wednesday in Hong Kong and South Korea for holidays.
Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies slumped after the People’s Bank of China reiterated that the digital tokens cannot be used as a form of payment. The largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 5.3% to $42,430 in New York, continuing a week-long slide sparked by Elon Musk’s back-and-forth comments on Tesla’s holdings of the coin. Bitcoin is now at its lowest level since early February. Ether lost more than 7% while last week’s sensation, Internet Computer, continued its plunge. Dogecoin also slid. Some Bitcoin chartists see the coin heading back to $40,000. Still, “long bitcoin” is the world’s most crowded trade right now, fund managers say.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration plans to delay by two weeks a Trump-era ban on new American investments in Chinese companies with links to the country’s military. Investors now face a June 11 deadline to buy shares in subsidiaries of blacklisted companies or sell shares to Americans. Treasury officials aim to clarify the scope of the restrictions by that date. Biden’s decision on the ban has been closely watched on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are eager for a tougher stance on Beijing. Meanwhile, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has joined calls for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
One Japanese paper producer is determined to use trees to develop a successor to lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. Nippon Paper Industries is targeting new breakthroughs using cellulose nanofibers — materials produced by refining wood pulp, and currently used in diapers and food additives — with the aim of creating supercapacitors to rival existing batteries. The firm aims to have a pilot ready by 2025. Early use cases would be devices such as smartphones, said Mikio Fukuhara, a research fellow at Tohoku University who has collaborated with Nippon Paper. But electric vehicles would be the “ultimate application.”
What We’ve Been Reading
This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours:
And finally, here's what Cormac's interested in today
Improving sentiment toward the European economy is boosting global stocks with the greatest ties to the region. Goldman Sachs baskets of U.S. and Asia Pacific ex-Japan stocks with the highest sales exposure to Europe have beaten local benchmarks by about 10% so far this year, while a Japanese equivalent has outperformed by about 5%. Investors are warming to the reopening of European economies, an increase in the pace of vaccinations and the soon-to-take-off multi-year joint stimulus fund.
Even though the region's economy just slipped into a double-dip recession, economists see it bouncing back — perhaps even outpacing U.S. growth. Ironically, the European-exposure trend doesn't seem to hold for local investors: A basket of the most domestically exposed stocks is modestly underperforming the regional benchmark. That's likely down to the type of company involved. By definition, the international firms with European sales are exporters, and have also benefited from investor demand for cyclical shares.
Cormac Mullen is a cross-asset reporter and editor for Bloomberg in Tokyo.
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