International Early Shift | Bank of America and Goldman Sachs headquarters in Paris nearly attacked by Iranian bomb; Citibank, Deutsche Bank, and French employees working remotely

Bank of America and Goldman’s Paris headquarters narrowly avoid Iranian bomb attack; Citigroup employees in Germany and France work remotely

Citigroup said Thursday that, given last Saturday’s attempted attack on Bank of America’s Paris office, Citigroup employees in Paris and Frankfurt are currently taking measures to work remotely. In addition, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it carried out attacks on the U.S. Oracle data center in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and the Amazon data center in Bahrain, and also struck an advanced U.S. or Israeli aircraft south of Qeshm Island. After being hit, the aircraft crashed into the Persian Gulf. The Revolutionary Guard Corps also carried out attacks on several U.S. and Israeli-related industrial and military targets in the region and destroyed major parts. Separately, the Islamic Republic’s signature engineering masterpiece, the Karaj B1 Bridge, was attacked by the U.S. and Israel, damaging the main bridge structure and injuring multiple people.

Middle East Situation | Iran and Oman draft transit agreement for the Strait of Hormuz

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Garib Abadi said it is currently drafting an agreement with Oman to jointly monitor shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron, visiting South Korea, said restarting military action against the Strait of Hormuz is not practical and can only be done in coordination with Iran.

U.S. imposes 25% tariff on steel, aluminum, and copper derivatives

The Trump administration is implementing new tariff policies for key metals industries and the pharmaceutical sector, imposing a 25% tariff on steel, aluminum, and copper derivative products. In addition, for pharmaceutical companies that have not yet reached an agreement with the U.S., it plans to impose new tariffs of up to 100%. Separately, the U.S. International Trade Commission announced that it has launched a Section 337 investigation into certain display devices, streaming players, and their components. Companies under investigation include multiple Chinese firms affiliated with Hisense, accused of infringing certain patent rights in the process of importing and selling certain products to the United States.
(See also: Tariffs | Trump plans to impose up to 100% tariffs on some imported medicines)

Mainland launches actions to crack down on transferring illicit funds overseas using offshore companies

The Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Leading Group held a meeting. Among them, the National Supervisory Commission led special actions to pursue and recover assets overseas related to duty-related crimes. The Ministry of Public Security carried out a special “Fox Hunt” campaign. The People’s Bank of China, together with the Ministry of Public Security, carried out special actions to prevent and crack down on transferring illicit funds overseas using offshore companies and underground money houses.

U.S. stock market moves | Dow recovers more than 600 points of losses; close slightly soft

Trump expects the Iran war to escalate in the short term, which runs counter to the market’s earlier hope for a quick ceasefire. New York oil futures prices rose by more than 10%. The Dow fell as much as 668 points to 45897 on Thursday, then closed down only 61 points; the S&P 500 rose 0.11%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.18%, after dipping as much as 1.53% and 2.15% respectively at one point. Tesla’s first-quarter electric vehicle sales missed expectations, with the stock down 5.4%; Meta fell 0.8%; IBM jumped 2.1%.

Offshore Focus Quick Notes

￭ Trump announced he has dismissed the Attorney General, Bondi, ending the controversial term of this loyal supporter.
￭ Dallas Fed President Logan said reducing reserve requirements is one of the ways to shrink the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet size; the central bank can reduce banks’ demand for reserves through regulatory changes, thereby shrinking the balance sheet.
￭ An IMF report said the Fed does not have much room to cut rates this year, and it is expected to cut rates only once by year-end.
￭ Bloomberg reported that Musk’s SpaceX has raised its IPO target valuation to more than $2 trillion.
￭ Tesla produced 408,386 electric vehicles in the first quarter, up 13% year over year; expectations were for 388,200 vehicles. Among them, Model 3/Y production grew 14%.
￭ Amazon announced it will charge delivery-service sellers a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge, effective April 17, applicable to the U.S. and Canada.
￭ In the latest week, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time fell by 9,000 to 202,000, below expectations. Challenger reported that in March the number of jobs to be cut by U.S. companies increased more than 25% month over month to about 60,600; layoffs in the technology sector rose by more than 24%.
￭ U.S. 10-year Treasury yields once rose by 6.8 basis points to 4.388%, then turned lower; 2-year Treasury yields rose by 6.13 basis points to 3.8623%, then were roughly flat afterward.
￭ The U.S. dollar index once rose 0.61% to 100.263; the euro fell 0.69%; and the Japanese yen fell 0.58%.
￭ Bitcoin plunged as much as 3.62%, to $65,709.
￭ Spot gold prices fell 4.29% at one point, hitting a low of $4,554.21 per ounce; New York’s June gold closed at $4,679.7, down about 2.8%.
￭ New York oil futures surged as much as 13.83%, topping $113.97 a barrel, and closed at $111.54, still up 11.4%; Brent oil futures rose 7.78% to close at $109.03.
￭ Iran: The Strait of Hormuz will be closed to the U.S. and Israel long term.
￭ Data from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) showed that in the first quarter, global corporate mergers and acquisitions activity remained active, recording more than $1.2 trillion.
￭ Pan-European Stoxx 600 closed down 0.18%. The UK market closed up 0.69%, while shares in France and Germany fell 0.24% and 0.56% respectively.
￭ U.S. Secretary of State Rubio said recent actions by China targeting vessels flying Panama flags have raised serious concerns about the use of economic tools to undermine Panama’s rule of law.
￭ Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a telephone call with Germany’s Foreign Minister Weddel Futhurfu, said that the U.S. and Israel’s military strikes on Iran were not authorized by the United Nations Security Council and clearly violate international law.
￭ The Middle East war has upended global crude oil trade. Bloomberg reported that Chinese officials have instructed private refinery companies to keep their finished-product oil output at last year’s level even if they incur losses.
￭ Asia-Pacific stock markets fell across the board; South Korea’s KOSPI closed down 4.47% on Thursday, and Japan’s Nikkei index fell 2.38%.

Local Focus Quick Notes

￭ The ADR Hong Kong stock proportion index closed at 25291, 175 points higher than Hang Seng. Xiaomi (01810) rose 2.5%, HSBC (00005) rose 1.8%, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (00388) rose 1.6%, and AIA (01299) rose 1.4%.
￭ Hang Seng Index futures night session closed at 25233, at a premium of 116 points.
￭ According to a WTO report, in 2025 Hong Kong will be the world’s fifth-largest goods trade and economic entity, up two places from the previous year. Total goods trade value rose 17.5% year over year to $158.5 billion, accounting for 3% of the global total.
￭ At the eighth hearing of the independent committee investigating the fire at Tai Po Macro Fortune Court, there were issues involving both the general meeting regarding recruiting Hongyi as an engineering consultant and the awarding of the Hong Yat Engineering contract, with many authorized votes involved; it has been questioned that complaints were aimed at the chairman of the management committee, the management company, and the consultant “Dragon-Link.”
￭ “Liu Mache,” a net celebrity who was sentenced to prison for multiple assault and indecency cases, was arrested again for 11 indecency cases within 4 days; the youngest victim is 12 years old.
￭ The chairman of “Tech Supervision,” businessman Pan Zhuhong, was involved in posting online content attacking tribunal judges the year before; earlier he admitted two counts of contempt of court. On Thursday, he was sentenced to one month in prison and ordered to pay legal costs.
￭ “Two dollars two-fold discount” takes effect from Friday. KMB and Long Win said, to support the rollout of the new measures, they have completed system updates and testing for the fare collection system. Citybus said it has updated the fare collection system and completed technical testing.
￭ Starting from the 30th of this month, it is prohibited to possess alternative smoking materials in public places, namely e-cigarette pods, heated cigarettes, and herbal cigarettes; violators face a fine of 3000 yuan.
￭ Data from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) shows that in this year’s first quarter, Hong Kong’s stock market financing total was $21.16 billion, up 26.4% year over year, the highest first-quarter level since 2021.
￭ Both autonomous driving startup Yuanrong Qixing and the unmanned driving startup QCraft have secretly submitted listing applications to HKEX (00388), planning to list within this year.
￭ Bloomberg reported that the mainland-listed optical module leader Jinxuer (300308.SZ) has secretly submitted an application to list in Hong Kong, raising at least $3.0 billion (about HK$23.4 billion).
￭ JD.com (09618) issues unsecured notes with an aggregate principal amount of RMB 10 billion.
￭ BYD (01211) said the 2026 Seagull 06GT and the 2026 Seagull 06DM-i touring version will be launched simultaneously, with a guidance price range of RMB 111,900 to RMB 169,900.
￭ New World Development (00017) plans to put up for sale and has failed to sell a group of older buildings in Causeway Bay that has been under acquisition for nearly 13 years, becoming the largest failed auction case in history. New World said it would make prudent consideration to seek reasonable returns.
￭ S&P Global said Hong Kong’s commercial real estate market is showing partial recovery. It expects overall office and retail rents to continue trending downward this year, but the rate of decline will be slower than in previous years.
￭ Hong Kong’s secondary home price index has rebounded. Centaline City Leading Index (CCL) rose to 152.17 points in its latest reading, up 0.85% week over week, reaching the highest level in more than 2 years.