Asian stocks looked set for a mixed start after three days of gains, while U.S. equities climbed amid encouraging news on the vaccine front and speculation over progress on a stimulus package. The dollar weakened against all major peers.

Futures dipped in Japan, were flat in Hong Kong and rose in Australia. S&P 500 contracts were little changed after the gauge rose to within 2% of its record closing high. Novavax Inc. jumped on positive early data from its experimental vaccinefor Covid-19. Ten-year Treasury yields climbed. Oil rose after a government report showed a decline in U.S. stockpiles, while gold continued its ascent above a record $2,000 an ounce. Meantime, the offshore yuan touched a five-month high.

Malaysian glove-maker Riverstone Holdings posted a 119.3-per-cent surge in net profit to RM137.5 million (S$45.27 million) for the six months ended June, driven by the spike in global demand for its health-care examination gloves, clean-room gloves and face masks. With stronger sales, the mainboard-listed company recorded a 30.5-per-cent jump in revenue to RM626.7 million in H1. As a mark of confidence and to reward shareholders, Riverstone has declared an interim dividend of 4.00 sen, up from 1.55 sen for the same period last year.

Fibre-optic cable owner NetLink NBN Trust posted a 12.4 per cent increase in profit after tax (PAT) to S$23.5 million for Q1 FY2021 ended June, even as its top line shrank amid restricted manpower and access amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The mainboard-listed trust's Q1 revenue dipped 3.3 per cent to S$89 million, on the back of decreases in activity-based installation and diversion revenues. This was partly cushioned by a S$2.9 million rise in revenue from fibre connections, given a 3.3 per cent increase in residential connections.

CSE Global, a tech-solutions provider to the oil and gas and mining industries, saw its earnings for H1 FY2020 ended June rise 47.7 per cent to S$15.1 million, on the back of contributions from its newly-acquired units in the US and Australia. The mainboard-listed firm has also declared an interim dividend of 1.25 cents per share, unchanged from last year. This will be paid out on Sept 15.

Singtel associate Bharti Airtel and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will join forces to develop the Indian telecoms firm's cloud business, allowing it to offer a wider range of products to its enterprise clients, the two companies said on Wednesday. Airtel Cloud currently provides data centre and cloud services to companies and governments via different partnerships.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding posted a 17-per-cent drop in net profit to 773.9 million yuan (S$154.5 million) for Q2 FY2020 ended June, as its top line took a hit from lower contributions from the trading business. The mainboard-listed firm saw Q2 revenue fall 32 per cent to 4.8 billion yuan. Amid lower trading volumes, income from its trading business more than halved to a billion yuan, from 3.2 billion yuan a year ago. This segment carried a low gross profit margin of around 1 per cent.

Source: SGX Masnet, The Business Times, Bloomberg, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, PSR