Real-time News

Kia Motors: Global vehicle sales in July reached 298,037 units, up 13.4% year-on-year.

Futures News, August 3rd: Zhengzhou rapeseed meal futures opened higher today but then fluctuated. Canadian canola futures fell sharply, with the benchmark November contract closing down 8.09%, retreating from a three-year high reached last week. This mainly reflected the plunge in international crude oil futures and Chicago soybean oil, as long positions were liquidated before the end of the month. Rapeseed meal spot prices rose slightly. August saw a large volume of imported rapeseed arriving at ports, which is expected to ease rapeseed supply and increase rapeseed meal production. However, supported by strong demand from aquaculture, rapeseed meal prices are expected to remain relatively stable. Attention should be paid to weather conditions in the Canadian prairie region and the rapeseed growing conditions.

Russian authorities claim to have shot down 131 Ukrainian drones in western Russia.

According to data from Indonesia's Statistics Bureau, the number of foreign tourists entering Indonesia in June decreased by 2.15% year-on-year.

The China Earthquake Networks Center officially determined that a magnitude 4.2 earthquake occurred at 13:00 on August 3 in Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.55 degrees north latitude, 104.67 degrees east longitude), with a focal depth of 5 kilometers.

Iraq's national oil marketing organization SOMO has asked long-term buyers to book Basra crude oil for shipment in August.

The China Earthquake Networks Center automatically determined that an earthquake of approximately magnitude 4.2 occurred at 13:00 on August 3 near Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.56 degrees north latitude, 104.68 degrees east longitude). The final result is subject to the official rapid report.

August 3rd - According to an analysis by the Financial Times, wildfires and heat waves sweeping across France, Spain, and other parts of Europe have already caused over €3 billion in losses this year, highlighting the escalating damage caused by climate change-induced fires. In the first two months of the fire season alone, nearly 500,000 hectares of land were burned, with the five hardest-hit eurozone countries (including Portugal, Greece, and Romania) alone suffering losses of €3.1 billion. This figure far exceeds the European Commission's estimate of an average annual loss of €2.5 billion for the EU.

Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing (02314.HK): Revenue for the first half of 2026 was HK$14.8 billion, up 21.3% year-on-year; profit for the period was HK$1.4 billion, up 69.3% year-on-year; earnings per share were HK$0.3197. The company declared an interim dividend of HK$0.112 per share.

August 3 – Strategists suggest the U.S. Treasury may use euros instead of dollars to fund its yen-buying program to avoid currency depreciation and jeopardize its strong dollar policy. Two sources familiar with the matter revealed that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York requested inquiries from at least two major U.S. banks last Friday regarding the yen-euro exchange rate. “The U.S. likely doesn’t want to appear to be selling dollars,” said David Forrest, senior strategist at Credit Suisse in Singapore. He added, “The U.S. maintains a strong dollar policy because they don’t want to be seen as trying to gain a competitive advantage by weakening their own currency, as this would violate the G20 consensus on foreign exchange policy.” “It wouldn’t look good for the U.S. Treasury to sell dollars, hence the choice to use euros,” said Jason Wang, currency strategist at Bank of New Zealand in Wellington. He noted, “The end result is essentially the same, because the funds will need to be reallocated back to euros at some point in the future, which could mean the U.S. will eventually sell dollars, just in a less transparent way.”

Euro Stoxx 50 futures and German DAX futures both rose by more than 1%.

August 3rd - It has been learned that Ant Group's AI subsidiary, Ant Lingbo Technology, may be launching an independent financing round. This marks the official transition of this "physical AI special forces" backed by Ant Group from being wholly incubated by the group to facing scrutiny from the external capital market. The aforementioned source revealed to Blue Whale Technology that the core reason for Ant Lingbo's independent financing is the internal resource constraints within the group: "Ant Group has invested heavily in AI, and its computing power budget is facing pressure."

Biren Technology (06082.HK) announced that it has completed the "Day0" adaptation and optimization of MiniMax H3 on the flagship general-purpose GPU product Biren series based on the SGLang inference framework.

The China Earthquake Networks Center officially reported that a magnitude 3.6 earthquake occurred at 11:11 on August 3 in Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.54 degrees north latitude, 104.67 degrees east longitude), with a focal depth of 5 kilometers.

On August 3rd, the international standard "Technical Framework and Functional Requirements for Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology: Blockchain as a Service," led by my country, was successfully approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Representatives from Germany, the UK, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, and Uganda will participate in its development. The standard will define three key technical requirements: In terms of infrastructure and network, it will standardize the construction and operation of underlying resources and the blockchain network. Regarding service management and smart contracts, it will unify the platform service catalog and the entire lifecycle management process for contracts. Finally, in terms of data interaction and security, it will clarify on-chain data access, privacy protection, and security compliance mechanisms.

According to Yonhap News Agency, data released on Monday showed that South Korea's online shopping sales increased by approximately 10% year-on-year in June, driven by strong demand for mobile devices and automobiles. Data from the Ministry of Statistics and Census Service showed that online shopping transactions in South Korea reached 24.6 trillion won (approximately US$17 billion) in June, an increase of 2.3 trillion won compared to the same period last year. The report showed that sales of mobile devices more than doubled, reaching 892.4 billion won, clearly benefiting from promotional activities by Samsung Electronics. Spending on automobiles and related products also surged 56.8% to 1.19 trillion won, driven by strong sales of Tesla electric vehicles.

The China Earthquake Networks Center automatically determined that an earthquake of approximately magnitude 3.4 occurred near Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.56 degrees north latitude, 104.68 degrees east longitude) at 11:12 on August 3. The final result is subject to the official rapid report.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama declined to comment on whether foreign exchange intervention was carried out today.

On August 3rd, the Token Service Working Group (in preparation) of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Development Alliance (AIIA) recently held a closed-door seminar on "Token Cross-border Flow and Open Cooperation." The Token Service Working Group will systematically promote the construction of a token cross-border flow and open cooperation mechanism in the following five aspects: First, systematically conduct research on cross-border flow mechanisms. Compile the "Token Cross-border Flow Development Research Report," analyze the regulatory policies and technical constraints of major global markets, and clarify compliance boundaries, risk points, and feasible paths; Second, simultaneously develop dual standards and specifications for compliance and technology. Promote the compilation of the "Artificial Intelligence Token Cross-border Flow Compliance Guidelines" and the "Artificial Intelligence Token Cross-border Flow Technical Requirements," clarify compliance requirements for data export and technology export, and unify interface specifications for cross-domain transmission and computing power scheduling; Third, conduct pilot demonstrations in emerging markets. Relying on multilateral and bilateral mechanisms targeting emerging markets such as ASEAN and BRICS, and the advantages of free trade zones, conduct closed-loop verification of "compliant entry + domestic processing + compliant exit," testing the stability of technical solutions and the effectiveness of compliance mechanisms; Fourth, build a cross-border service supply and demand matching platform; Fifth, construct a token cross-border flow service system.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara: Japan and the United States maintain close communication on foreign exchange issues. If necessary, Japan will not hesitate to take further foreign exchange action.