| China grapples with an estimated one million Covid cases a day. Bankman-Fried is released on bail. The best-performing trades of 2022. Here's what you need to know today. China plans to cut quarantine requirements for overseas travelers in January, according to people familiar with the matter, as the country dismantles the last vestiges of its Covid Zero policy. Officials are considering scrapping hotel quarantine in favor of three days' health monitoring for arrivals. A new analysis estimates that China is seeing one million cases, and 5,000 deaths, a day. Meanwhile, the US is drastically scaling back its own pandemic response, with lawmakers rejecting calls for additional funds for testing and treatment, even as hundreds of people still die from the virus every day. Sam Bankman-Fried was released on a $250 million bail package — one of the largest in US history — after making his first US court appearance to face fraud charges over the collapse of FTX. He did not enter a plea and his next appearance is scheduled for Jan. 3. His release came as two of his long-time associates said they were cooperating with prosecutors. Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang have pleaded guilty to fraud and, in an ominous sign for Bankman-Fried, are working with federal officials probing the collapse of the crypto exchange. Read Matt Levine's take on things here.  | Asian equities face a gloomy end to the week after a slump in US tech stocks and more economic data validating the case for the Federal Reserve to keep hiking interest rates. Futures for shares in Hong Kong, Japan and Australia fell, along with an index of US-listed Chinese companies, after the S&P 500 closed down 1.5%. Tech stocks are heading for their worst December since the dotcom crash of 2002. On the flipside, these were the best-performing trades of 2022. The US Senate passed a $1.7 trillion government funding bill that includes more aid for Ukraine and changes to the way presidential elections are counted. Passage of the bill funneling $47 billion toward Ukraine's defense effort against Russia came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed Congress. The bill — a victory for Democrats — now heads to the House, where Republican leaders are urging their members to oppose it. They argue they should be allowed to write their own funding plan and enact deep spending cuts in January when they take over the majority. Singapore's Sea is freezing salaries for most staff and paying out lower bonuses this year, bracing for what founder Forrest Li warned could be a worsening global economic environment in 2023. The Asian internet giant needs to focus on profitability after a difficult 2022, the CEO announced in an internal memo this week seen by Bloomberg News. The gaming and online-retail company has lost about 77% of its value this year and cut 7,000 jobs.  Maiden Flight of Xpeng Aeroht's prototype in Guangzhou on Oct. 11. Photographer: Xpeng Aeroht/Xpeng Aeroht This year has been one of the worst on record for investors across a range of assets — and the classic 60:40 portfolio has been more of a hindrance than a help. A Bloomberg index mirroring the performance of such an allocation to stocks and bonds delivered 16% losses so far in 2022, the most since 2008. There are hopes for better times in the coming year, with Bank of America's chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett among those predicting the portfolio will offer better rewards. One key reason for optimism is that this year's bond selloff means yields are meaningul again, restoring one of the key fundamental reasons for expecting the fixed-income part of the holdings to offer stable returns to balance the more mercurial performance that equities offer. Garfield Reynolds is Chief Rates Correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, based in Sydney. | 
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