Unlike in the United States and New Zealand, it’s illegal in Australia to advertise prescription medicines directly to the public.
The main idea is to avoid demand for a drug that may not be appropriate, but which doctors may feel under pressure to prescribe.
But drug companies can get around this restriction by running “awareness” ads that indirectly promote their products.
For instance, we’re currently seeing ads raising awareness about weight loss that don’t mention the names of specific Ozempic-style drugs. Instead, these ads recommend you speak to your doctor about your weight.
The main argument for such awareness ads is they encourage people to seek help from their doctor, rather than suffer from symptoms they might have been embarrassed about, or have not been able to address themselves.
For instance, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly – which make weight-loss drugs – told the ABC recently their campaigns were trying to raise awareness of obesity as a chronic disease.
The main counterargument is that awareness ads act as drug promotion in disguise.
So, should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to run awareness ads for diseases or conditions their drugs treat?
We asked five experts. Four out of five said no. Here are their detailed answers.
The owner of a historical orchard said its apple trees will not survive being dug up and moved to make way for a proposed busway.
Coton Orchard lies in the path of the proposed £200m Cambourne to Cambridge (C2C) guided busway.
Planners hoped that linking the town and city will ease congestion on local roads and 10,000 trips will be made each day on the new route.
However, Anna Gazeley, whose family owns the Coton Orchard, told an ongoing public inquiry into the proposals that 12 of the oldest Bramley apple trees on the site were “fragile”, vital to the area’s ecosystem and would not survive the move.
The C2C Busway project has been put together by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) on behalf of Cambridgeshire County Council.
If it goes ahead it will see a new busway built from Cambourne to Cambridge, via the Bourn Airfield development, Hardwick, Coton, and the West Cambridge Site.
A pathway alongside the busway is also proposed for pedestrians and cyclists. A travel hub is also planned at Scotland Farm.
The proposed route would run through Coton Orchard, which is a century-old 60-acre site.
Ms Gazeley told the inquiry on Wednesday that her father bought the orchard in 1996 after he had seen other orchards he knew from his childhood disappear.
She told inspectors about the ecological importance of the orchard, and shared fears about the impact the development would have on its “fragile” trees.
It was “one of the largest remaining traditional orchards in Cambridgeshire” and had been designated a priority habitat under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan and a county wildlife site, she said.
“This is a habitat with ecological memory – more than 100 botanical species have been recorded in its understory, such as mosses, liverworts, fungi… confirming as ecological evidence has shown that this site has matured far beyond commercial cultivation,” she added.
She said the trees were “fragile” and argued they would not survive the move.
“The applicant now accepts the veteran status of those founding Bramleys, yet still asserts that no loss or deterioration would result from the scheme,” she said.
One of the legal representatives of the Cambridgeshire County Council challenged Ms Gazeley on her evidence and questioned its credibility.
They highlighted an example in her written submission of a reference she made to an article about the impact of moving trees, which they said did not actually exist.
They said: “You referred to a reference that does not exist. It has been made up and hallucinated by AI.”
Ms Gazeley said she had used AI to help create her submission and accepted it may not be a perfect document.
However, she said there were other references made and advice taken from experts about the impact of moving the trees.
She said: “Those trees, they are hollow, they are fragile, the features that make them veteran trees is what makes them structurally very poor.
“The thought that you can sever the roots, pull them up, drag them the length of the orchard to put them in a hole and expect them to survive with no deterioration defies credibility.”
At the conclusion of the inquiry, which is taking place in Cambourne and expected to last until November, inspectors will make recommendations to the government about the scheme.
A secret report reveals the likely source of the fatberg balls that closed a raft of Sydney beaches last summer – with most coming from the deepwater ocean outfalls at Malabar, Bondi and North Head.
The partly-redacted scientific report, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, points to a combination of heavy rains and a buildup of fats, oils and greases as the likely cause of the “poo balls”.
Authorities are unable to say when balls could wash up again – but are urgently working on solutions.
“We do believe that fat is accumulating somewhere in the system. We know [it’s] in the pipes, definitely, [but] we’re unsure of its whereabouts specifically,” Sydney Water’s environment manager, Ben Armstrong, told Guardian Australia.
The report notes that the debris balls “are assumed to be of a sewage origin” and their “discharge is most likely to be from an outfall, but the stormwater system may also be implicated”.
“Fats, oils and greases (FOGs) in the sewerage system provide the ‘stickiness’ for the debris balls. They possibly adhere to the sides of pipes. Particulate material may then stick to these FOGs,” the oceanographic modelling report by WQ Data states.
“High rainfall in the year or so leading up to the discharge of the debris balls effectively ‘primes’ the sewerage (or stormwater) system. Within a few days prior to their discharge, further rainfall is sufficient to move the combined FOGs and particles out of the pipes.”
Wave action then rolls the combined FOGs and particulate matter into balls. Between October 2024 and February 2025, “the oceanographic / meteorological conditions were suitable for the debris balls to be released and for them to be moved to the Sydney and NSW south coast beaches”.
Oceanographic modelling data prepared by WQ Data. Photograph: WQ Data Pty Ltd
Work by Sydney Water and the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) suggests the so-called fatbergs are due to an increased use of vegetable oils, which break down slowly, an increase in food outlets and the overall growth of the city’s population.
The EPA has previously said testing revealed the balls were consistent with human-generated waste such as grease and faecal matter.
There are particular concerns about the Malabar sewage treatment plant.
“There are global issues about fatbergs and sewers, and it’s effectively the same thing,” the chair of the EPA’s advisory panel, and an independent expert, Prof Stuart Khan says.
“This particular sewer [at Malabar] has had a long time for fats, oils and grease to build up.
“There’s nearly 2 million customers in that system and over the past 10 years, not only has there been growth in population using that system, but also increasing numbers of food outlets that may or may not have appropriate trade waste licenses in place or the right infrastructure in terms of grease traps and things to be preventing run off of fats, oils and grease.”
The release of the oceanographic report, commissioned by Sydney Water, suggests the state-owned corporation could have known as early as 3 February 2025 that the debris balls were likely from its ocean outfalls. That is the date of the “preliminary draft”.
Guardian Australia first reported in October 2024 that a team of scientists was investigating whether the balls could be linked to sewage and whether they could have come from water treatment plants.
The EPA chose to reveal the content – but not the source – of the beach balls on the day of the US election in November.
The EPA publicly confirmed their likely origin in April 2025 when it issued a preliminary investigation notice to Sydney Water.
Since then, the two agencies have been conducting urgent studies to ascertain the extent of the problem.
Sydney’s sewage system relies on three “deepwater ocean outfall” pipes that run up to 4km out to sea at Malabar, Bondi and North Head. The sewage receives primary treatment to remove some solids and is then pumped through pipes, exiting through diffusers 60 metres below the surface, where the plume mixes with seawater.
Treatment plants map
Prior to 1990, Sydney’s sewage was discharged from the bottom of the cliffs near the plants, just a few hundred metres out to sea. Pollution was a regular phenomenon, particularly after rain, with faecal contamination and other rubbish regularly washing onto beaches.
The ocean outfalls were highly successful in improving water quality, with faecal contamination becoming almost negligible, except immediately after rain, when stormwater runoff sometimes caused an issue.
But the growth in population, food outlets and industry, particularly in Sydney’s west, is causing a buildup of fats, oils and grease in the system, which threatens to overwhelm it.
The oceanographic study
The study commissioned by Sydney Water, which mapped oceanographic currents and winds, traced the balls back to more than one of the three major sewage outfalls.
It hypothesises that heavy rain about six months prior to the discharge of the balls, which occurred between October 2024 and January 2025, primed the system and further heavy rain then dislodged the fatbergs.
“No single discharge from a single origin could be responsible for the appearance of the debris ball on all beaches between October 2024 and February 2025.
“Ten (or perhaps more) discharge events may be responsible for the observed debris balls on the beaches during this period.”
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The report studied 10 incidents. The first balls were found on Coogee beach in October 2024. Subsequent incidents occurred at other eastern suburbs beaches and Botany Bay, Manly, the northern beaches and on the south coast.
The report and subsequent studies raise the question of whether Sydney Water’s sewage system has reached its limits and whether debris balls will return to the beaches this summer if rainfall conditions are repeated.
“We’ve had rainfall events and pulses going through the system without having debris balls previously, to our knowledge,” Khan says.
“So we’re trying to find out: why now? And why only sometimes now? Why not after every wet weather event? There are questions around whether the catchment to the sewer is changing, and therefore whether or not it’s something that we’re going to see more often. If that’s the case, then better controls over what goes into the sewer will be important.”
Wastewater systems in greater Sydney. Illustration: Sydney Water
There are concerns about what is lurking in the deepwater outfall pipes.
Sydney Water can inspect other parts of the system, but is unable to inspect these pipes, which are 35 years old. To undertake maintenance would require decommissioning the outfalls and reverting to releasing barely treated sewage at Sydney’s cliffs.
The solution
Armstrong says Sydney Water’s “Save our sinks” campaign encourages businesses and households to avoid putting oils and fats, milk, coffee grounds and other solids down the sink.
Changing consumer behaviour is an important part of the solution, he says. Maintenance is also crucial.
Julian Thompson, operations manager at the Environmental Protection Authority, says Sydney Water has “a fairly stringent” maintenance program, particularly around the Malabar catchment.
“They spend quite a lot of money on desilting their sewers. They have crews that can get into those pipes. It sounds like a pretty unpleasant job, but they’re basically within those large pipes … taking out fats, oils and greases, taking out wet wipes and other things that block up sewers.”
The longer-term solutions require greater investment and some hard decisions for the NSW government.
“What we’re currently doing now is not sustainable – discharging 80% of the sewage produced by 5 million people into the ocean after only primary treatment,” Khan says. “Every drop of water we send out into the Pacific Ocean is wasted water.”
Sydney Water is looking to expand or build water resource recovery facilities which take sewage, highly treat it and render it suitable for reuse. It has a demonstration plant at Quakers Hill.
This could reduce pressure on the existing wastewater system while potentially providing Sydney with a non-rainfall-dependent form of additional drinking water.
A map showing proposed new water treatment sites and Sydney Water’s existing plants, which have deepwater outfall pipes that reach up to 4km off the coast.
“The NSW government made a very clear statement that we would only proceed with that if it could be demonstrated that there’s a social license for it,” Khan says.
Sydney Water’s long-term plan has these projects listed with a 10-year horizon. They may need to be brought forward.
The state’s water minister, Rose Jackson, says: “Sydney Water is now working to prevent future events through new programs to help reduce the amount of fats, oils and grease entering the wastewater system.”
She noted the long-term plan to upgrade the system and reduce the volume of water flowing through the outfalls.
“This approach delivers environmental benefits while avoiding the significant cost to customers of upgrading coastal plants and pipelines to manage increasing flows, she said.
Mysterious debris balls that washed up in Sydney were examined by Prof Jon Beves and his team at UNSW. Photograph: Prof Jon Beves
The three parties will carry out a field trial from October 23 to October 24, 2025 at the 53rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Jakarta where local seniors will be able to experience the app.
Furthermore, the three parties will develop a points-based health-promotion insurance concept. This proposed service will convert users’ exercise assessments from the app and participation in health check-ups into points, which can then be used for insurance premium discounts or other benefits. Participating insurance companies will be selected by the parties at a later date.
Through this initiative, FIG aims to promote the widespread adoption of gymnastics programs for seniors and accelerate its contribution to extending healthy life expectancies through sports, as envisioned by the ASWG. The initial target for this insurance service will be the estimated 30 million worldwide participants in FIG’s Gymnastics for All sports program. FIG will also contribute to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia [1].
Fujitsu will contribute to promoting the health of seniors through its advanced skeleton recognition AI technology. Furthermore, under its Uvance business model, which addresses societal challenges, Fujitsu will continue to co-create with Uvance Partners to realize advanced health management services through Decision Intelligence powered by data and AI, thereby advancing people’s well-being.
Acer Medical will enhance the abnormal gait pattern detection function in aiGait to meet the growing demand for preventive medicine and smart healthcare in aging societies. Acer Medical is transforming routine movements—like standing, sitting, and walking—into valuable clinical insights. The goal is to help caregivers and clinicians detect subtle changes early, enabling timely intervention and improving patient outcomes.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Japan’s Kirin Holdings has put its Kentucky bourbon brand Four Roses up for sale at a price of $1bn, as the brewer pivots away from the struggling spirits sector towards healthcare.
Kirin has been working with advisers from UBS to test interest from potential buyers in recent weeks, with first-round bids expected as early as next month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The sale process comes during a tough period for brewers and distillers as they contend with changing habits among younger consumers, who are reducing alcohol consumption. In Japan, beer consumption has dropped, hurting Kirin’s core product.
Kirin and UBS declined to comment.
Kirin, a Japanese conglomerate that generates more than $15bn a year in sales and produces everything from lager and spirits to rare diseases medicines under its Kyowa Kirin subsidiary, has owned Four Roses since 2002.
Tracing its origins back to 1888, Four Roses is produced in a distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, in the heart of so-called Bourbon Country. Four Roses generated about $70mn in adjusted earnings annually and was expected to fetch as much as $1bn, the people said.
After first entering the pharmaceutical sector in the 1980s, Kirin has accelerated its push into healthcare in recent years, as well as shedding non-core beverage assets, such as a soft drinks joint venture in China.
Last year the company bought the skincare and supplements company Fancl as part of the effort. And in 2023 it launched a $1.3bn takeover for Australia’s largest vitamin company Blackmores.
Across 2024, Kirin’s pharmaceutical division generated 23 per cent of the group’s $15.4bn in total revenue, up from 20 per cent in 2020. Shares in Kirin are up 14 per cent so far this year, giving it a market value of nearly $13.6bn as of Thursday’s close.
Four Roses was likely to draw interest from strategic buyers, but some large drinks conglomerates might remain on the sidelines as they grappled with problems with their own product portfolios, the people said.
The S&P food and beverage index is down 4.9 per cent over the past year, whereas the wider S&P 500 index is up 16 per cent over the same period.
There were no guarantees that the sale process would result in a deal, the people cautioned. It is also possible that Kirin may opt to sell off a stake in the business through a joint venture, they added.
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Big pension funds are scooping up private equity professionals seeking refuge from a downturn in the sector that has restricted the carried interest payments that traditionally made up most of their pay.
Professionals from mid-market buyout groups, in particular, have been flooding pension plan recruiters with their résumés in a bid to escape the private equity fundraising squeeze.
“We are finding it easier to attract talent — not super easy, but much easier than three or four years ago,” said Ralph Berg, chief investment officer at the Ontario pension fund Omers.
“I suspect a lot of the private equity firms are struggling to hold on to people or maybe they want to manage . . . headcounts too.”
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, which manages assets for public sector pensions, hired about 20 people in the past two years from buyout firms due to “fundraising issues” at those groups, a person familiar with the matter said. BCI’s private equity team has 70 people in total, according to its website.
The experience of the Canadian pension plans is the latest sign of how a prolonged downturn, initially ushered in by 2022 interest rate increases, is rippling through the financial sector.
The higher cost of borrowing hampered dealmaking and left firms with less cash to return to their institutional backers. This in turn reduced how much money those backers could recycle into new buyout funds.
Private equity groups raised just $592bn in the 12 months to June, their lowest tally for seven years, data from Preqin shows.
Tougher fundraising has led to lower revenue streams for buyout firms from management fees, leaving them with less cash to hire talent. Smaller firms have struggled the most with fundraising as buyout fund backers have flocked to larger groups which are seen as more reliable.
Berg of Omers said that the red hot mergers and acquisitions market in 2021 had made that a tough year for pension funds to retain staff.
But the more subdued dealmaking environment that has endured since meant that “people — especially juniors — have seen that there [have] been fewer deals to work on”, Berg said, adding that “they fundamentally worry that they are not . . . building up their CVs”.
“All of a sudden,” he added, “those employers that have their own capital and don’t depend on fundraising in order to make new investments and have more sustainable [compensation] structures with a higher level of predictability now look attractive.”
Baker McKenzie has advised Pinnacle Investment Management Group Limited (ASX: PNI) (“Pinnacle”) on its strategic investment in Advantage Partners, Japan’s largest independent, locally-grown, diversified private markets platform.
The transaction also involves distribution services arrangements covering global distribution of Advantage Partners’ strategies.
This strategic investment will deepen Pinnacle’s presence and participation in Japan, and aligns with the company’s objective to diversify internationally and increase exposure to global private assets, particularly in the attractive mid-market area.
Pinnacle is a global multi-affiliate investment management firm that provides specialist investment managers with superior global distribution, fund infrastructure, and support services.
For further details about the transaction, please refer to the Company’s announcement.
The Baker McKenzie team was led by partners Robert Wright, Lance Sacks and Shirin Tang*, alongside counsel, John Nielsen, with support from associates Thara Ing**, Allan Yang**, Mathew Leow** and Samiha Asim.
With more than 2,700 deal practitioners in over 40 jurisdictions, Baker McKenzie is a transactional powerhouse. The Firm has the broadest M&A footprint of any law firm globally, with more than 1,300 locally qualified and globally experienced M&A lawyers. The team excels at advising clients on their most complex, cross-border M&A matters and has advised on more than USD 600 billion in M&A transactions in the last five years (Refinitiv; 2020-2024).
* Principal, Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, Singapore ** Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, Singapore
China’s overseas lending in renminbi is soaring, as Beijing steps up its efforts to expand the currency’s role in international finance and reduce the country’s exposure to the US dollar.
External renminbi loans, deposits and bond investments by Chinese banks quadrupled to more than Rmb3.4tn ($480bn) over the past five years, as policymakers more aggressively pursue their long-term goal of reducing the centrality of the dollar in global financial flows.
As part of this campaign, China is also opening more channels for foreign investors to buy renminbi-denominated bonds. But officials have focused their efforts on boosting the renminbi’s role in trade, partly as a defence against policies enacted in the US and elsewhere that weaponise the dollar — such as this week’s EU sanctions targeting Chinese banks accused of helping Russia to secure weapons parts overseas.
“From China’s perspective, [settlement in renminbi] is important because it shows that no matter what happens, it can still trade,” said Adam Wolfe, emerging markets economist at Absolute Strategy Research in London.
Recent data from China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange shows the external fixed-income assets of Chinese banks more than doubling over the past decade to more than $1.5tn, with the share denominated in renminbi expanding rapidly to almost $484bn at the end of June. This includes $360bn of renminbi loans and deposits, up from $110bn in 2020.
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Similarly, the Bank for International Settlements estimates that overseas bank lending in renminbi to borrowers in developing countries rose by $373bn in the four years to the end of March.
“The year 2022 marked a turning point away from dollar- and euro-denominated credit and towards renminbi-denominated credit” to such borrowers, the BIS said.
With interest rates in China relatively low, sovereign borrowers including Kenya, Angola and Ethiopia have converted old dollar debts into renminbi this year. Indonesia and Slovenia recently announced plans to issue renminbi bonds, and last month Kazakhstan’s development bank sold a Rmb2bn offshore bond at a yield of just 3.3 per cent.
A big part of the expansion in renminbi lending has been in trade finance. Data from cross-border payments system provider Swift shows that the renminbi’s share of global trade finance quadrupled over the past three years to 7.6 per cent in September, making it the second most-used currency in trade finance after the US dollar.
China has further bolstered the use of the renminbi overseas through a network of offshore clearing banks, both Chinese and foreign, and through swap lines with trading partners around the world.
It comes as Beijing has pushed the use of its own cross-border payments system, Cips, where the value of transactions has risen from a negligible amount a decade ago to more than Rmb40tn in every quarter since the start of last year.
Cips transactions have expanded even as the renminbi’s share of global payments on the Swift system has fallen. Bert Hoffman, a professor at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute, said this most likely indicated a migration of payments to the Chinese system — furthering Beijing’s desire to move away from a dollar-based global monetary system to a multi-polar one.
Chinese officials believe that “a dollar-based system is inherently unstable and has disadvantages that a multicurrency system would not have,” Hoffman said.
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Chinese customs data suggests such plans are advancing. It shows the value of Chinese trade transacted in renminbi soaring to more than Rmb1tn a month over the past decade, with about 30 per cent of China’s trade and more than half of its cross-border transactions now settled in renminbi.
China’s capital controls, however, have long hindered the renminbi’s international appeal — according to the IMF, it made up just 2.1 per cent of official reserves at the start of this year. One problem is a lack of readily available renminbi assets.
Policymakers are moving to address this. Hong Kong authorities have embarked on a plan to make the city a hub for fixed income and currency trading. Simultaneously, Beijing has opened its domestic interbank repo market to foreign investors, allowing them to use renminbi fixed-income assets as collateral for renminbi loans.
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The repo initiative “deals with some of the pain points for foreign investors”, said Karen Lam, head of Hong Kong securitisation and derivatives at law firm Simmons & Simmons.
“It only makes sense for investors to allocate more into these assets if they are able to use them for more than just holding and generating an income.”
Last month, Hong Kong authorities announced a “road map” to bolster the city’s markets by supporting issuance and liquidity, particularly in renminbi.
“It’s as significant as what Hong Kong did with the stock connect programmes,” said Paul Smith, head of markets for Japan, north Asia and Australia at Citi, referring to the channel connecting the Hong Kong stock exchange to mainland bourses. “Ultimately, it will accelerate the renminbi as a funding currency.”
Over the summer, Beijing broadened the scope of its bond connect programme to allow more mainland Chinese investors to invest in Hong Kong’s fixed income market, which Smith said connects offshore issuers of renminbi debt with a “deep pool of renminbi liquidity”.
Experts agree that China has little interest in the renminbi taking the place of the US dollar in the global financial system. But by boosting the renminbi’s involvement in international trade and investment, “China may get the best of both worlds,” said Smith at Citi.
Beijing’s policies are bringing that target into view, analysts say.
“The policy is moving very gradually, but all of the elements that would make a much more rapid internationalisation work — they’re falling into place,” said Hoffman.
Additional reporting by Joseph Cotterill in London
(Bloomberg) — Technology shares drove a broad rise in Asia’s stock markets on Friday as a plan for Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to meet eased nerves around a trade war.
An MSCI gauge of Asian shares was up around 0.5%, resuming a blistering rally this year that has pushed the index to all-time highs. Tech stocks were among the big drivers, with an industry gauge in Hong Kong jumping around 1.4% in early trading. Shares in Intel Corp helped lift the mood overnight, climbing in post-market trading after an upbeat revenue forecast.
Sentiment got a boost after the White House said President Trump will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, a chance for cooler heads to prevail after a recent flare-up in trade tensions. The two leaders will talk next Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, their first face-to-face meeting since Trump returned to power.
“The confirmation of a Xi–Trump meeting gave markets a clear reason for a relief rally today,” said Hebe Chen, an analyst at Vantage Markets in Melbourne. “Not from hopes of warmer U.S.–China relations ahead, but from the perception that any progress is better than stalemate, and that a new deal before the truce deadline now appears more attainable.”
Tech stocks in both countries have rallied, in part due to signs of state support. US quantum-computing shares got a lift from reports that the Trump administration was mulling financial support for some firms, a move to counter China, while Beijing’s pledge to boost technological self-sufficiency fueled demand for tech stocks in early trading.
Investors are now turning their attention to the delayed inflation report from the US, which will be released on Friday. The cross-asset moves overnight suggest investors are optimistic the inflation reading won’t be a major drag to global markets that have zoomed higher over the past month. Oil prices fell ahead of US inflation data.
“Valuations continue to be the best argument for bears, but the relentless buy-the-dip approach of investors has even the most pessimistic investors questioning their outlook,” said Mark Hackett at Nationwide.
Policy Turn
Treasuries were steady on Friday. They had snapped a three-day rally during overnight trading as yields rose across the curve, with the 10-year climbing five basis points to 4%. The dollar was little changed.
West Texas Intermediate edged lower after jumping 5.6% to settle near $62 a barrel on Thursday, the biggest jump since the start of the Israel-Iran conflict on June 13. The latest US oil sanctions signaled a major policy turn from the Group-of-Seven price cap strategy that sought to limit Russia’s earnings without disrupting supply or driving up global prices.
“As with the trade war, the fallout from the oil sanctions is murky at best, although we expect that from the perspective of the market at least, the kneejerk spike in crude will represent the bulk of the attention devoted to this matter, as it were,” said Ian Lyngen, Vail Hartman and Delaney Choi at BMO Capital Markets.
Investors will likely look past any evidence of stubborn inflation in Friday’s consumer price index report, as money markets brace for a Federal Reserve rate cut next week.
Prospects for Fed easing, durable earnings growth and AI investment spending support the view that the equity bull market has further room to run, according to Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi at UBS Global Wealth Management. But she also sounds a note of caution.
“Any setbacks in US-China relations or potential concerns about the durability of the AI-driven rally could trigger bouts of volatility,” she said.
How should regulators react to the blurring line between investing and gambling? Let us know in the latest Markets Pulse survey.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% as of 11:17 a.m. Tokyo time Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) rose 1.5% Japan’s Topix rose 0.6% to a record high Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2% to the lowest since Oct. 17, 2025 Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.7% to the highest since Oct. 10, 2025 The Shanghai Composite rose 0.2% to the highest since Oct. 9, 2025 Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 0.2% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1611 The Japanese yen weakened 0.2%,falling for the sixth straight day, the longest losing streak since Oct. 9, 2025 The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.1276 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin rose 0.9% to $110,597.69 Ether rose 1.4% to $3,884.39 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.00% Australia’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.15% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.6% to $61.43 a barrel Spot gold fell 0.3% to $4,112.90 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
UNIQLO Ranked Among World’s Top 100 Best Brands in 2025 Interbrand Rankings
Brand recognition continues to rise internationally in 2025, following debut on Kantar’s prestigious BrandZ Global Top 100 list of world’s most valuable brands
FAST RETAILING CO., LTD. to Japanese page
Fast Retailing brand UNIQLO has been included for the first time in global brand consultancy Interbrand’s Top 100 Best Global Brands list, one of the world’s most influential brand rankings. UNIQLO entered in the top half of the list, at rank 47, with a brand valuation of $17.7 billion. The announcement follows UNIQLO’s debut earlier in the year in market research agency Kantar’s prestigious BrandZ Global Top 100 ranking, alongside being named Kantar’s ‘Breakthrough Brand’ at its annual Brand Blueprint Awards, confirming its rising recognition and popularity internationally.
Commenting on the announcement, Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. Group Senior Executive Officer Koji Yanai said, “We are pleased to be included for the first time in Interbrand’s prestigious Best Global Brands ranking for 2025. This international recognition brings us great joy, as it indicates there are UNIQLO fans around the globe who appreciate LifeWear – simple, high-quality, timeless clothing designed to make everyday life better. We are deeply grateful to our customers everywhere for their continued support of UNIQLO.”
Each year, Interbrand’s ranking analyses the world’s top global brands, evaluating them according to financial performance, international presence, and brand awareness and strength, which takes into account customer loyalty. In this year’s analysis, Interbrand noted that UNIQLO is a brand that is uncompromisingly focused on meeting the needs of its customers, working to continually reaffirm its place in their lives.
The recognition follows UNIQLO’s receipt of the Breakthrough Brand award at the second annual Kantar Brand Blueprint Awards, in June. The award identifies the brand that has achieved rapid growth with the most meaningful differentiation from others, achieving the triple crown of combining “meaning”, “difference” and “salience” on a global scale. In 2025, UNIQLO also debuted on Kantar’s BrandZ Global Top 100 list of the world’s most valuable brands, entering at rank 97.
Recognition in these prestigious global awards represents the increasing worldwide appeal of UNIQLO’s LifeWear concept of making everyone’s life better through clothing. From its first store opening in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1984, UNIQLO today operates more than 2,500 stores in 26 countries and regions around the globe.
