A global equity rally looked set to extend into Asia on Wednesday after U.S. stocks climbed to fresh records. Treasuries retreated with the dollar. The S&P 500 Index closed at an all-time high and the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 30,000 for the first time as cash flowed into cyclical sectors. U.S. futures were little changed in Asia trading. Helping sentiment overnight was the formal start of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition, a clearer sense of what his Treasury Department will have in policy preferences after he nominated Janet Yellen to the post and a third promising vaccine candidate. The Treasury yield curve steepened. Gold dropped toward $1,800 an ounce and oil held its surge.

Malaysia's Top Glove Corp expects deliveries to be delayed and sales to fall below its forecasts after thousands of positive Covid-19 tests among its workers forced the world's biggest rubber glove maker to shutter some factory operations. The firm said some deliveries could be delayed by four weeks and new orders could take longer to process, while sales could fall 3 per cent short of its projections for the 2021 financial year.

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) has priced S$500 million worth of 3.5 per cent notes due 2030 under its S$10 billion multi-currency medium-term note programme, which it has upsized from S$5 billion previously. The notes are expected to be issued on Dec 2. DBS Bank and United Overseas Bank acted as joint lead managers of the issue.

CATALIST-LISTED Artivision Technologies has completed the pre-clearance consultation on certain matters for its plan to acquire electronic payment and online retail business Mobile Credit Payment (MC Payment). It has also submitted a pre-admission notification to the bourse operator for the proposed deal, which will result in a reverse takeover (RTO) of Artivision.

MAPLETREE Investments has entered the Kyushu logistics market by acquiring a prime land plot spanning a whopping 116,319 square metres (sq m) or nearly 1.3 million square feet (sq ft). That's roughly the size of 15 football fields. In a statement on Tuesday, Mapletree said it will develop two blocks of Grade A four-storey, double ramp-way logistics facilities on the site. They will have a combined gross floor area of 231,648 sq m or about 2.5 million sq ft.

Tesla crossed US$500 billion in market value on Tuesday as investors lapped up its shares in the run-up to its addition to the S&P 500 index, extending a meteoric rally that has seen the stock gain more than six times this year. Shares of the electric-car maker have risen nearly 28 per cent since the S&P Dow Jones Indices decided to add the company to the benchmark index from Dec 21.

Tencent Holdings is investing about US$150 million in Waterdrop to bankroll the Chinese startup's expansion in healthcare crowdfunding, according to people familiar with the matter.The insurance tech firm, which already counts Tencent as a backer, will use the funds to expand its online platform and bolster its technology, the people said, requesting not to be identified because the matter is private.

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