While you were sleeping, Trafigura’s Beijing chief was detained by police, American business and professional groups called on China to clamp down on NGO’s, and female Viagra got FDA approval. Meanwhile, futures point to another down day ahead of tonight’s U.S. non-farm payrolls report.
Futures on Asian equity indices point to another day in the red. After recovering from yesterday’s bloodbath, contracts on the Nikkei, the Hang Seng, as well as the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index all signal another down day in Asia with the Nikkei slipping 0.4% in the Osaka pre-market, the Hang Seng falling 0.4%, while the China Enterprises Index dipped 0.7%. The only light in the darkness seems to be the bond market, which has seemingly stabilized a little after yesterday’s rout. Bloomberg
Credit card ABS market set to reopen. After being somewhat banned last November, the market for credit card asset-backed securities is set to reopen again as China Merchants Bank preps to issue the securities again within the next few months. SCMP (paywall)
U.S. Jobs report coming up tonight. With the Fed reliant on economic data to time their first rate hike, all eyes will be on one of the most important one’s tonight – the U.S. jobs report. Economists over at Deutsche Bank are forecasting a 275,000 gain in April and expect unemployment to decline by a tenth. FXStreet
Trafigura’s Beijing head detained. In what has been seen as an escalation of a dispute between the Swiss commodity trading giant and several local companies over gasoline trading, Li Bo, the Singaporean head of the Trafigura’s Beijing office, has been detained by police at a Beijing airport just before hopping on a routine flight to Singapore. Tian Meng, who was part of the firm’s oil-marketing arm, was also arrested over the dispute last year. Neither has been formally charged with anything. Bloomberg
Authorities suspect China hackers are behind an attack on 4 million records at U.S. agency. The FBI is investigating the breach at the Office of Personnel Management, the largest in history. OPM first detected the attack in April; it appears to have ended in May. Wall Street Journal
U.S. business and professional groups urge China to change a law that would clamp down on NGOs. Signed by 45 groups, the letter warns the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress would have an “adverse impact on the future of U.S.-China relations.” Wall Street Journal
China tops U.S. in IPOs. Chinese companies have raised about $29 billion from IPOs this year, surpassing the $15 billion raised in the U.S. The second and third biggest IPOs of the year have come from Hong Kong bringing in $4.5 billion for Huatai Securities and $4.1 billion for GF Securities. Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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