China unveils landmark shift in Covid rules. Musk plans to put a computer in a human brain in six months. Pundits predict S&P 500 will fall in 2023. Here's what you need to know today. Beijing will allow some Covid-infected people to isolate at home, in a landmark shift that reflects the pressure officials are under from a record outbreak and public opposition to strict virus regulations. The move dials back a nationwide policy that has seen everyone with Covid sent into government quarantine regardless of severity, to halt transmission chains. China has signaled a transition away from the harshest Covid curbs in recent days, following protests across the country at the weekend. The relaxation comes exactly three years after the first documented case of the virus was recorded. Elon Musk's Neuralink hopes to embed a computer within a human brain within six months. The goal of the brain-computer interface would initially be to help people with traumatic brain injuries communicate via their thoughts. The company demonstrated that with a monkey "telepathically typing" on a screen in front of it. Musk's hope is that the device could one day become mainstream and allow for the transfer of information between humans and machines. Neuralink is in ongoing discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration over human trials. | Apple is ramping up work on a mixed-reality headset, its first major new product category since the Apple Watch, and has renamed accompanying software in the latest sign of an approaching debut. The company plans to introduce the headset as early as next year, along with a dedicated operating system and app store for third-party software, sources say. Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has joined a chorus of voices, including Elon Musk, criticizing Apple's App Store policies and fees. The Bank of Japan should conduct a policy assessment, with the timing dependant on inflation, wages and the economy, according to board member Naoki Tamura in his first exclusive interview. Tamura is the first board member to explicitly suggest the need for a policy assessment, after the bank conducted its most recent review in March last year. In the past, review results have often come with policy adjustments, including the introduction of the yield curve control program in 2016. The end of Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's decade-long term in April has also generated speculation of policy shifts. Here's who could replace him. Stocks in Asia are set for a mixed open after US equities struggled for direction, with traders looking to a jobs report for clues on the Federal Reserve's next policy steps. The dollar fell with bond yields. Equity futures in Japan and Australia pointed to declines while those for Hong Kong indicated gains. Meanwhile, stock pundits are ditching two decades of unbroken bullishness and forecasting another drop for the S&P 500 in 2023. Japan's soccer team pulled off its second giant upset at the World Cup to top their group — beating Spain and condemning Germany to an ignominious first-round exit. In the currency markets the Japanese yen is also marking a surprising victory run, surging 10% over the past month to outpace 30 other major peers. Whether or not Japan's team goes any further in the beautiful game, the yen looks poised to crash even higher. Local life insurers and foreign hedge funds have both been caught well and truly offside. Japanese investors are under-protected against yen gains and face a race to mend those fences that could ironically spur fresh yen gains. That's bad news for leveraged funds that re-upped their bearish positions on the currency in early September when the yen was trading around 135 to 136 per dollar. With the dollar-yen rate testing the bottom of the band that could set off fresh yen gains, both into and out of Friday's US payrolls report. Garfield Reynolds is Chief Rates Correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, based in Sydney, |
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