Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day: Asia
Kim Jong Un, North Korea's leader, prepares to write in a guestbook assisted by his sister Kim Yo Jong inside the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea on April 27, 2018.
Source: /Inter-Korean Summit Press CorpsGood morning. Wall Street finds a bright spot in China’s chip sector. Kim Jong Un’s sister offers Japan an olive branch. And traders sent US stocks and bonds higher ahead of an inflation report. Here’s what’s moving markets. — Isabelle Lee
Contrary to the headline gloom, there are some bright spots in Chinese equities. Wall Street firms including Barclays and Sanford C. Bernstein are looking at the nation’s chip stocks as long-term winners, with the former singling out Naura Technology Group and Hygon Information Technology as names that may one day be as well known as US counterparts like Applied Materials and Advanced Micro Devices. The reasoning is simple: US efforts to curb access to cutting-edge semiconductor tech will supercharge the development of China’s chip industry as a matter of survival. And despite the wreckage of its stock-market meltdown, some traders are making long-shot bets that officials in Beijing can stoke a recovery. Call options volume — which typically indicates investor interest in bullish wagers on an asset — spiked last week to the highest in more than a year for the $4.2 billion iShares China Large-Cap ETF.