Stocks dropped in the slowest trading day of 2021 after a rally that drove the equity market to all-time highs. Treasuries climbed.  Volume on U.S. exchanges slipped below 10 billion shares for the first time this year. Tech companies led losses in the S&P 500 on Tuesday, offsetting gains in retailers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq 100 also retreated. Stocks tied to the Archegos Capital Management blowup ended the session higher as investors brushed news that Credit Suisse Group AG unloaded more than $2 billion of the shares in the latest block trades stemming from the liquidation of Bill Hwang’s fund.

SG

Pharmaceutical company iX Biopharma has entered into an agreement with China Resources Pharmaceutical Commercial Group Co (CRPCG), which could pave the way for its product to be manufactured and distributed in China, the Catalist-listed company said in an exchange filing on Tuesday. Under the strategic cooperation agreement, iX Biopharma and CRPCG will engage in "all-round cooperation" with respect to iX Biopharma's pipeline of sublingual pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products in China, the company said.

ST Engineering and Oshkosh Defense, LLC, have been selected by the National Advanced Mobility Consortium (NAMC) to participate in the prototype phase for the US Army's Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV), according to Oshkosh's press statement on Monday. The US tactical vehicle manufacturer said that the CATV is a new programme for a tracked vehicle that operates in extreme cold weather or arctic conditions, and that it is designed to replace the Small Unit Support Vehicles (SUSVs) which have been in service since the early 1980s.

The response last week from the manager of Sabana Shari'ah Compliant Industrial Real Estate Investment Trust (Sabana Reit) to recent letters and public releases from Quarz Capital Management and Black Crane Capital was understandably self-serving. But it also reflected the apathetic, box-ticking culture that pervades the local corporate sector, and often results in minority investors getting a raw deal. In particular, in explaining why it should not have to bear the costs of the failed merger with ESR-Reit, as Quarz and Black Crane are demanding, the manager of Sabana Reit took the view that it had no choice but to bring the deal to unitholders.

Recent shortages and disruptions in the shipping industry have generated interest in Samudera Shipping Line, a container shipping line serving the Asian region. The stock is up 26 per cent this year, closing at a 52-week high of 31.5 Singapore cents on Monday. Covid-19 lockdown measures have boosted e-commerce sales, creating additional demand for container shipping. On the supply side, the pandemic has led to port congestion and lack of manpower to work the docks - resulting in reduced capacities.

Catalist-Listed Axington Inc, the company linked to the Bellagraph Nova saga last year, is now a cash company and faces the risk of delisting if it does not acquire a new business within a year, the company said in an exchange filing on Tuesday after market close. This comes after the company notified the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading (SGX-ST) on April 1 of its cash company status according to Catalist listing rules, given that it does not currently have any "revenue-generating business", according to the filing.

The Trendlines Group on Tuesday announced that it has received a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) for the acquisition of a portfolio company by a public corporation. In the event that a definitive agreement is signed and the acquisition of the portfolio company is completed, the transaction is expected to have a material positive impact on the net tangible assets per share and earnings per share of the group for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2021, the medical and agrifood technology investment group said. Based on the LOI, Trendlines Group's minimum share of the sale proceeds to be received in cash is estimated to be approximately S$19 million.

US

Credit Suisse on Tuesday announced several high-level staff departures and proposed a cut to its dividend as it weighs heavy losses from the Archegos Capital saga. The Swiss lender now expects a first-quarter pre-tax loss of around 900 million Swiss francs ($960.4 million), after taking a charge of 4.4 billion Swiss francs as a result of the scandal. “The significant loss in our Prime Services business relating to the failure of a U.S.-based hedge fund is unacceptable,” CEO Thomas Gottstein said in a trading update.

Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank has acquired 40% of Norwegian warehouse automation firm AutoStore for $2.8 billion. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday and later confirmed by AutoStore in an update on its website. The deal values AutoStore at $7.7 billion. SoftBank, which has made a string of investments into e-commerce and robotics over the last few years, is buying the stake from U.S. private equity group Thomas H. Lee Partners and Swedish venture capital firm EQT.

In preparation for its debut on the Nasdaq next week, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said on Tuesday that first-quarter revenue climbed about nine-fold from last year, driven by a historic rally in the price of bitcoin. Revenue in the period jumped to about $1.8 billion from $190.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier, Coinbase said in a press release, adding that the results are preliminary and unaudited. Net income grew to between $730 million and $800 million from $31.9 million a year ago. Coinbase said it has 56 million verified users.

The International Monetary Fund is expecting a stronger economic recovery in 2021 as Covid-19 vaccine rollouts get underway, but it warns of “daunting challenges” given the different rates of administering shots across the globe. The organization said Tuesday it expects the world economy to grow by 6% in 2021, up from its 5.5% forecast in January. Looking further ahead, global GDP for 2022 is seen increasing by 4.4%, higher than an earlier estimate of 4.2%.

A third batch of $1,400 stimulus checks has been sent, which this time includes “plus-up” payments for people who are eligible for more money now that their 2020 tax returns have been processed. The latest payments bring the total number of checks issued to more than 130 million, representing a total of about $335 billion, according to the IRS. The third batch included more than 4 million payments worth more than $10 billion. Those payments had an official payment date of March 31, but could have been received earlier, according to the tax agency.

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