22/08/2025

BIZ & FINANCE FRIDAY | AUG 22, 2025

/thesuntelegram FOLLOW / Malaysian Paper

ON TELEGRAM m RAM

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Asia’s wealthy investors ramp up crypto in portfolios

Indian regulator plans to extend equity derivatives’ tenure to curb losses MUMBAI: India’s markets regulator is planning to increase the tenure and maturity of equity derivatives contracts, its chairman, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, said yesterday, as it looks to curb trading in a segment where more than 90% of traders suffer losses. A surge in derivatives trading over the last few years, driven in part by retail investors, has prompted the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to limit the number of contract expiries and increase lot sizes to make such trades more expensive. The plans to extend the tenure of such contracts is at a conceptual stage, Pandey said at the sidelines of an industry event. Still, shares of stock exchange operator BSE and discount broker Angel One slid 5% each. Derivatives trading contributes more than 50% to BSE’s revenue, and three-fourths to that of Angel One. Separately, Sebi also set up a dedicated unit to examine patterns of manipulation, the regulator’s whole-time member Kamlesh Varshney said at the event. The move comes after Sebi had temporarily barred US-based firm Jane Street for its trading strategies that “manipulated” a key stock market index. Jane Street has denied these allegations and said its trading strategies were simple arbitrage. Pandey added that Sebi would work with India’s Corporate Affairs Ministry and stock exchanges to build a regulated platform for the so called “grey-market”, where unlisted shares change hands. – Reuters Japan bonds fall after auction, 10-year yield hits 17-year high TOKYO: Japanese government bond prices fell yesterday in choppy trading, with the 10-year yield hitting a 17-year high, as a weaker-than-expected outcome of a liquidity-enhancing auction weighed on sentiment. The 10-year JGB yield was last at 1.61%, its highest level since October 2008. The yield was flat at 1.605% earlier in the session. Yields move inversely to prices. The liquidity-enhancing auction for the bonds maturing between five and 15.5 years held earlier in the session was not strong enough, triggering a brief sell-off of the 10-year bonds, said Naoya Hasegawa, chief bond strategist at Okasan Securities. “As soon as the 10-year bond yield hit a new high, investors bought the bonds.” The yield slipped from the high as investors, who were attracted by the yield level, bought the bonds. However, investors are not in a hurry to buy the bonds ahead of the Bank of Japan’s potential interest rate hike, said Hasegawa, leaving the yields swaying between gains and declines in the past sessions. The 20-year JGB yield also rose to 2.655% on Thursday, its highest level since November 1999, and was last at 2.64%, up 0.5 basis point from the previous session. “The market does not seem to have absorbed the 20-year bonds sold at the auction. That seems to weigh on yields (of) bonds with maturities between 20 and 25 years,” said Tomoaki Shishido, senior rates strategist at Nomura Securities. – Reuters

o Funds receive more enquiries, platform trade volumes surge SINGAPORE: Wealthy Asian families and family offices are ramping up their cryptocurrency investments, driven by the bullishness around digital assets, increased mainstream adoption and favourable regulatory developments in key markets. Wealth managers said they are receiving more enquiries, cryptocurrency exchanges have seen trading volumes surge and crypto funds are in huge demand as high-net-worth Asian investors seek more exposure. “We raised over US$100 million (RM422 million) in just a few months, and the response from LPs has been encouraging,” said Jason Huang, founder of NextGen Digital Venture, referring to Limited Partners that represent high net-worth individuals. Huang launched a new long-short crypto equity fund, the Next Generation Fund II, in Singapore in late May, after winding down his first fund last year, which returned 375% in less than two years. “Our investors – mainly family offices and internet/fintech entrepreneurs, recognise the growing role of digital assets in diversified portfolios,” he said. Swiss investment bank UBS said some overseas Chinese family offices plan to raise their crypto exposure to around 5% of their portfolios. “Many second- and third-generation individuals of family offices are starting to learn about and participate in virtual currencies,” said Lu Zijie, head of wealth management at UBS China. The surging interest comes on the back of strong cryptocurrency returns and favourable regulatory developments in the United States under President Donald Trump, such as the recently approved GENIUS Act. Bitcoin prices have been hitting record highs this month, surpassing US$124,000. Hong Kong’s recent passage of its stablecoin legislation has also fuelled a wave of crypto enthusiasm. “The momentum has definitely built, and I think it’s a function of just general maturity of the asset class,” said Saad Ahmed, head of Asia Pacific at crypto exchange Gemini. Wealth managers said the mindset among Asian clients has changed from merely wanting to have a small allocation to digital

A promotional staff performing at a consensus, the flagship event of Coindesk and the data platform for the global crypto economy, at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Hong Kong. – AFPPIC

for digital assets at Fidelity International, said investors are increasingly treating bitcoin as a “portfolio diversifier” to hedge macro uncertainties, given its low correlation with stocks and bonds. Cryptocurrency exchanges have also benefitted from increased trading demand. The number of registered users at Hong Kong’s HashKey Exchange surged 85% year-on-year by August 2025, the firm said. Total trading volumes at South Korea’s three major exchanges grew 17% so far in 2025 over the same period of 2024, with average daily trading volumes rising over 20%, according to research platform CryptoQuant. – Reuters

currencies a few years ago to now embracing it as a must-have in portfolios and exploring tools to optimise returns. “Last year, they (family offices) started to dip their feet into bitcoin ETFs ... now they have begun to learn the difference of holding a token directly,” said Zann Kwan, chief investment officer at Singapore-based Revo Digital Family Office. Lighthouse Canton, a Singapore-based wealth manager, said some more sophisticated family offices have started adopting market-neutral strategies, such as basis trades and arbitrage. Giselle Lai, associate investment director

Baidu reports revenue drop as consumption flags BEIJING: Chinese internet giant Baidu recorded a slight drop in quarterly revenue on Wednesday, dragged down by a persistent slump in domestic spending as its push into artificial intelligence accelerates. period was down 15% year-on-year to 16.2 billion yuan, the statement showed. China is facing an uncertain economic outlook as cautious consumers navigate a years-long downturn in the property market, high unemployment and trade tensions with Washington. profit during the second quarter was 7.3 billion yuan – a 33% jump year-on-year but down five percent from the previous quarter. The company has invested heavily in AI, placing it in an increasingly competitive race alongside China’s other tech giants Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance. It has also sought to advance its autonomous “robotaxi” services abroad.

Beijing-based Baidu, the operator of China’s top search engine, generates a significant proportion of its revenue from online ads, making its performance highly susceptible to fluctuations in the country’s spending patterns. The firm achieved revenue of 32.7 billion yuan (RM19.3 billion) during the second quarter of 2025, down 4% year-on-year, according to a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Revenue from online marketing during the

Retail sales – a key gauge of consumer demand in China – grew at a slower rate in July than expected, official data showed on Friday. Following years of tight regulation of the vast Chinese tech sector, Beijing is hoping that recent advancements in AI will provide the spark needed to jumpstart the domestic economy. Baidu also said on Wednesday that its net

Baidu and Lyft announced plans this month to launch robotaxis on the rideshare app in Germany and Britain in 2026, pending regulatory approval. The firm said in a joint statement with Uber in July that it plans to offer driverless cars on the Lyft competitor’s app in Asia and the Middle East this year. – AFP