Stocks begin the week in the shadow of a jump in benchmark Treasury yields ahead of the Federal Reserve policy meeting. The dollar edged higher in early Asian trading. Ten-year Treasury yields rose past 1.64% Friday as vaccine campaigns and the $1.9 trillion U.S. stimulus added to concerns about faster inflation amid an economic recovery. Australian 10-year yields jumped on Monday.

Equity futures pointed to a dip in Japan, while Australian shares slipped. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 contracts made modest gains. The S&P 500 closed higher Friday amid rallies in financial and industrial shares. The Nasdaq 100 gauge slid and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added to its all-time high. Elsewhere, oil edged higher and Bitcoin traded around $60,000 after surpassing $61,000 in a meteoric rise.

SG:

Aztech Global received applications from retail investors for 18.4 times the number of shares available in the public portion of its initial public offering (IPO), it announced on Thursday. With 3.5 million shares available to the public for subscription, it received 4,143 valid applications for about 64.42 million shares, with application monies received amounting to some S$82.5 million. Additionally, the company, which is in the business of the Internet of Things (IOT) and data communication, received indications of interest for about 1.06 billion placement shares, of the 64.62 million available. This results in its placement shares being some 16.4 times subscribed.

City Developments Limited (CDL) on Thursday said Sincere Property Group has "misrepresented" the circumstances of CDL's investment in the China developer as well as the relationship between the two parties. The Singapore-listed property giant was responding to claims by Sincere Property that CDL had held up key decisions since taking control of the company.

Coffeeshop operator Koufu Group has granted an independent third party purchaser an option to purchase its properties located at 18 and 20 Woodlands Terrace for a consideration of $11.8 million. The agreement was entered into by the group’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Koufu Pte. Ltd. on March 1. The proposed disposal is subject to and conditional upon the written in-principal approval from the Jurong Town Corporation. The purchaser has exercised the option on March 11. The consideration will be paid fully in cash.

US:

Japanese tech giant Rakuten is planning to raise $2.2 billion to help it compete with its U.S. rivals. The company announced Friday that it will issue 211,656,500 shares at 1,145 Japanese yen ($10.5) per share. National post service Japan Post is expected to buy 131,004,000 shares for an 8.3% stake, Chinese internet firm Tencent is expected to take 57,382,900 for a 3.6% stake, and U.S. retailer Walmart is expected to take 14,536,000 shares for a 0.9% stake.

Digital payments company Stripe raised $600 million in its latest round of funding, valuing it at $95 billion, the company said in a statement on Sunday. That makes Stripe the most valuable private company Silicon Valley has produced, according to the Financial Times. The company said it would use the capital to invest in its European operations, support surging demand and expand its Global Payments and Treasury Network. “We’re investing a ton more in Europe this year, particularly in Ireland,” said John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe.

Google failed to kill a lawsuit alleging that it secretly scoops up troves of Internet data even if users browse in "Incognito" mode to keep their search activity private. The consumers who filed the case as a class action alleged that even when they turn off data collection in Chrome, other Google tools used by websites end up amassing their personal information. A federal judge on Friday (March 12) denied the Alphabet unit's initial request to throw out the case.

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