Asian stocks are set to drop after a tumble on Wall Street, where worries about a surge in virus cases in multiple U.S. states spurred a flight from riskier assets.

Equity futures in Japan and Australia pointed lower after the S&P 500 declined 2.6% and Treasuries advanced along with the dollar. U.S. stock futures opened to a modest drop. Data showed Florida and California set daily records for new cases, while Houston said its intensive-care unit beds are at 97% capacity. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are requiring visitors from virus hot spots to self-quarantine. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell for the first session in nine.

Mainboard-listed luxury watch retailer Cortina Holdings has proposed to acquire privately-held Sincere Watch for S$84.5 million in cash, it said in an exchange filing early Tuesday morning. Cortina shares traded at S$2.30 as at 10.07 am Tuesday, up S$0.23 or 11.1 per cent from the previous close, after the announcement. Cortina said the proposed acquisition will provide it with exclusive distributorship rights to the Franck Muller brand in 12 countries within the Asia-Pacific.

Capitaland Retail China Trust (CRCT) on Tuesday launched an equity fundraising to finance part of its proposed purchase of interests in business parks and a Guangzhou mall. The private placement's indicative issue price range is S$1.193 to S$1.236 per new unit. That represents a discount of about 3.4-6.8 per cent to CRCT's closing price of S$1.28 on Monday. Also, it is at a 4.1-7.5 per cent discount to the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of S$1.2891 per unit of all trades on Monday.

A growing number of Singapore banks will make flexible work arrangements a permanent fixture for staff, as they make firm strides to new ways of working in the "new normal" brought about by Covid-19. DBS was the latest lender to announce a slew of new work practices on Tuesday. UOB had also earlier announced instituting a two-day work-from-home policy post Covid-19. Singapore's largest lender will give its 29,000-strong workforce the option to work remotely up to 40 per cent of the time, as well as implement a formal job-sharing scheme which enables two employees to share responsibilities of one full-time role.

Mainboard-listed ST Engineering will be reorganised into two main clusters from the new year - Commercial, and Defence & Public Security, which replace the sector-structure of aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine. The change in structure was announced in a regulatory filing on Tuesday, which ST Engineering said will position the group for its next phase of growth, and propel it towards becoming a global technology, defence and engineering powerhouse.

The US Federal Aviation Administration is expected on Wednesday to detail the changes Boeing Co must make on its 737 MAX jet in order for it to fly again commercially following a 20-month grounding sparked by two fatal crashes in accidents in Ethiopia in 2019 and Indonesia in 2018, a stall-prevention system known as MCAS, triggered by faulty data from a single airflow sensor, repeatedly and forcefully shoved down the jet's nose as the pilots struggled to regain control.

Walmart scored another round of strong earnings Tuesday as it sharpens its focus on e-commerce growth and retreats from some overseas markets with the coronavirus roiling the retail economy. The world's biggest retailer enjoyed another quarter of lofty US sales, although the gains moderated from earlier in the pandemic when rival "non-essential" retailers were closed and shoppers boosted by US government stimulus funds.

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