Asian stocks look set to weaken Friday after another all-time record for the U.S. market overnight, as investors weighed the latest corporate earnings and solid economic growth data.

Futures pointed down in Hong Kong, Australia and Japan, where markets will reopen after a holiday. U.S. contracts slipped following a new high for the S&P 500 and a stronger close for the Nasdaq 100 amid mixed earnings reports.

SG:

Kimly has entered into a joint venture (JV) agreement through its wholly-owned subsidiary Kimly Makan Place to manage two coffee shops in Bukit Batok and Serangoon North, the coffee shop operator said on Thursday. The coffee shops are located at Block 233 Bukit Batok East Avenue 5 and Block 153A Serangoon North Avenue 1. Kimly Makan Place will manage the coffee shops under the JV with Tade Group, a private company in the business of letting and operating self-owned or leased food courts, coffee shops and eating houses.

Mapletree Industrial Trust (MIT), for its fourth quarter ended March 31, posted a distribution per unit (DPU) of 3.30 Singapore cents, indicating a 15.8 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) increase from 2.85 Singapore cents in the corresponding period last year. Revenue in Q4 FY20/21 rose 18.9 per cent y-o-y from S$101.8 million in Q4 FY19/20 to S$121.06 million. Net property income (NPI) increased 17.3 per cent y-o-y to S$91.81 million, from S$78.26 million the previous year.

DBS Group trumped market estimates with a 72 per cent rise in quarterly profit to a record high on strong loan growth and stabilising asset quality, while highlighting bullish prospects in a recovering global economy. "This has been an extraordinary quarter for our business as we fired on all cylinders. Loan and deposit growth were robust, fees were strong and treasury had a record performance," Piyush Gupta, CEO of Southeast Asia’s largest bank, said in the results statement on Friday.

US:

Applications for US state unemployment insurance fell last week to a fresh pandemic low as more Americans get vaccinated and return to work. Initial claims in regular state programmes decreased by 13,000 to 553,000 in the week ended April 24, Labor Department data showed on Thursday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists was 540,000 claims. The prior week's total was revised up to 566,000.

McDonald's on Thursday smashed Wall Street estimates for comparable sales and returned to pre-pandemic levels of growth as more consumers, flush with stimulus cash, were drawn to its newly launched crispy chicken sandwiches. McDonald's rolled out its chicken sandwiches, which come in three different flavours, earlier this year in the United States, looking to tap into a frenzy kicked off by privately owned Chick-fil-A and Restaurant Brands' Popeyes in 2019.

Mastercard posted a surprise increase in revenue as consumers returned to travel faster than many analysts predicted. The fees Mastercard collects from overseas spending on its cards dropped 23 per cent in the first quarter, to US$932 million, smaller than the 28 per cent decline Wall Street was expecting.

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