| Taiwan to buy hundreds of new missiles. Tesla deal makes South Korean family ultra rich. AI aces finance tests. Here's what you need to know today. Taiwan will buy as many as 400 land-launched Harpoon missiles intended to repel a potential Chinese invasion, completing a deal that Congress approved in 2020. The Pentagon announced the $1.7 billion contract with Boeing on April 7. Several sources confirmed the deal was on behalf of Taipei. In other China news, Beijing announced it would carry out "major military activities" in the Yellow Sea from Tuesday; the US charged 44 defendants over an alleged Chinese campaign to harass citizens around the country who espoused anti-government views; and here's why Taiwan's 2024 election will determine China-US relations for years to come. The first wave of academic research applying ChatGPT to the world of finance is arriving — and judging by early results, the hype of the past few months is justified. Two new studies deployed the artificial intelligence chatbot in market-relevant tasks — one in deciphering whether Federal Reserve statements were hawkish or dovish, and one in determining whether headlines were good or bad for a stock. ChatGPT aced both tests, suggesting a potentially major step forward in the use of technology to turn reams of text from news articles to tweets and speeches into trading signals. Meanwhile, AI is putting millions of coding jobs at risk in India, and Google's CEO warned the technology needs strong regulation. A single order from Elon Musk's electric-car maker Tesla has propelled a South Korean family into the ranks of the ultra-rich. Shares in L&F, a producer of high-nickel cathodes that are key to making EV batteries, soared 82% after the company won a $2.9 billion order from Tesla. For Chairman Hur Jae-hong and people related to him, that means their listed holdings are now worth more than $800 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Meanwhile, Elon Musk said he was "looking into" concerns among Tesla staff in China that their bonuses were cut. Asian share markets were poised for another cautious open ahead of key economic data from China and after stocks on Wall Street eked out small gains late in the session. Futures pointed to a small advance for Japanese equities while Hong Kong looked set for slight declines. The possibility of further Federal Reserve policy tightening lifted Treasury yields and constrained US stocks, with the S&P 500 erasing losses in afternoon trading. Much of the focus in Asia will be on China and the strength of its economic recovery. Here's what to watch when China reports GDP data this morning. Foreign investors are buying up Japanese hotels at a scale unseen in almost a decade, as the nation's tourism recovery, weak currency and low interest rates drive appetite from abroad. Tourists have been flocking back to Japan since it eased pandemic-era border controls in October. Overseas investors are betting on strong demand from both foreign and domestic tourists, combined with tight supply from a lack of new hotel rooms in the country. Overseas buyers were responsible for 47% of the 494.3 billion yen ($3.7 billion) invested in hotel deals that closed in the past 12 months. - Do you expect yen or yuan appreciation to hurt the dollar? How much longer will the greenback dominate? What's the main purpose of crypto? Share your currency views in the latest MLIV Pulse survey here.
So far, so good for equities as investors dial down fears that March's banking madness would substantially damage the wider economy. That, along with a positive start to earnings season, has sent the S&P 500 back toward the peaks reached in January, while benchmark government bond yields are climbing handily from the lows. The sting in the tail is that yields on 10-year Treasuries are sitting at about 3.6%, and that's an area which has already proved to be a tipping point for stocks in both December and February. Bonds are unwinding some of March's gains as concerns fade about financial system strains, while the data continues to show a resilient economy with sticky inflation. That's got traders just about pricing in a May hike and starting to ponder another one in June. Yields are likely to push higher from here, which offers a stern test for any investors expecting the S&P 500 to hit fresh highs for this year in the coming weeks. Garfield Reynolds is Chief Rates Correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, based in Sydney. | 
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