story. china railway signal making a positive start to trading in hong kong. the great debate. the republican race is well underway. the 10 top leaders facing off with donald trump center stage. follow me on twitter. taking a look at the market where the looking at china markets are. a bit of weakness for australia. i think what we are seeing today is equities trade down. you are seeing fixed income. nothing is happening across the currency market. volumes are quite high. the u.s. jobs report comes out

later tonight. this could well determine what happened for the rest of august into september depending on how strong that number is today. we are seeing declines, australia is down about 2%. any markets are doing a little bit better. chinese markets are doing a little bit better. the currencies are absolutely rattled. seeing more weakness short-term for the malaysian currency. rates 4.110 for this quarter. 0. 4.1 chinese markets, shanghai

composite, that's your today chart. 3723. first dip in the waters if you will. china railway signal up 3/10 of 1%. not a resounding day. good day. it doesn't make railways, it makes the signals that tell the trains where to go. we want your opinions. do tweet us your thoughts. htc shares plummeting in taipei, falling by the daily limit in the first two minutes of the session. the company saying they are expecting a quarterly loss some five times greater than the analyst have been saying.

tim, why are things so bad? the list of reasons why things are so bad is so long, we really would need all day to get through it. xiaomi, one plus, samsung are all very strong. that's a really big thing there. you always have apple which is in their own ecosystem. htc has a lot of competitors. four years ago, they were at the top of the pile in the u.s. for a very brief time, but they were there. now they are outside of the global top 10. what the problem is, there are many problems, but the problem is they really don't seem to know where they are competing. are they trying to compete at the top or bottom and? they have admitted they will need to have to focus and so their focus is going to be on

the high end. it's not as much volume, but they are betting it will be a greater share of the industry profits because right now, most of the profits are falling to a few players in the smartphone industry. a lot of the players are not making much money at all. they want to be the guys making money from smartphones but that means not necessarily a lot of volume but a little bit more of the value. they will have to do that by trimming first because they have a lot of overhead. they're going to be cutting staff in the next few quarters. if it works, they can leverage from there to build on their brand, come back towards the end of the year with some strong products that will probably be higher-priced and more profitable for them. it's a story they have been talking about for a long time. they have been plummeting for four years now. analysts and investors are naturally skeptical. down 10% today. heading towards a 60% sold this year so investors are not convinced.

rishaad: thank you. the rba is pushing back its forecast for growth upswing. let's go over to michael heath in sydney. this decision to dow back on those -- to dial back on that previous forecast. this statement on monetary policy which contains the central bank's orderly forecast had a bit in it for everybody. probably more that people were focusing on because it was mentioned quite extensively in the statement was that unemployment probably is not going to rise further from here, it will not remain steady for the next 18 months and then fall back. there is a lot of focus on the. three months ago, the rba predicted to rise to 6.5%. the forecast for the upswing in grow has been pushed back

about a year. that suggests that australia is going to remain in a. of -- period of sustained growth. if we dig in a bit with the unemployment rate, the central bank also lowered its population projections for the next two years because he were are coming to australia because of the labor market than countries like new zealand which is a traditional source of migrants. we have very low wage growth at the moment. the central bank could have suggested that that has been helping contain unemployment. in many respects, it was the usual story with the central bank. there is a transition going on. they're watching growth in other industries outside of resources. at this stage, there are a few signs that that is happening. sign of not see any upswings in non-mining investments in the next year. is goingal building

great and they expect that to continue. ata sense, they are looking fairly similar situations that they have had for the last year or two, but they are seeing if you are positive signs. they opted to stress them in today's statement. even with the growth forecast being pushed back, there was a little bit more optimism in the tone of the statement. as i say, you could read it whichever way you are biased. there was something there for everybody. rishaad: thank you for that. at the rba'slook latest pronouncements as to where they are going next or where the us trillion economy is going next. here are some of the other stories. in a telecoms deal with $24

billion. the arrangement makes the combined company in italy the spur --wireless provider. of two spur the efforts companies. the deal still needs approval and it has to come from the eu antitrust regulators. we are also watching the first republican presidential debate which opened with fireworks featuring donald trump. the candidates were likely to want to direct any attention away from him, that isn't happening. let's have a look at what has been said. jump is the only one of 10 republicans on stage you refused to say he would abort -- support the eventual pick. rand paul jumped in to say that that is what strong -- what's wrong. trump shrugged off the attack

from paul and said he has given him plenty of money. the federal election commission has no record of trump contributing to paul. the long list of republicans who would be president have begun that long race to the white house. i want to get to the earlier debate. fiorina emerged a winner. halfway through, twitter buzz politicalement, commentators deemed her the winner saying get her back onto the 9:00 debate, she should be in the primetime one. it does not look like she is going to be asked to do that. said earlier that he has actually run a government before unlike trump and carly fiorina said that trump has tapped into voters' anger at the ruling political class. look at some of

the other stories we are watching this hour. coming up later, india's largest mobile carrier aiming to spread its wings. we will have the details as we had live to mumbai. can singapore retain its status in the regional and global economy? the city state prepares to turn 50. ♪

rishaad: taiwan has issued emergency flood and landslide warnings ahead of a typhoon expected to hit land tonight. this is the type and from the international space station. it is weakening somewhat and forecasters say it could be a

three when it hits land. families of those missing from malaysian airline flight 370 express their anger about the answers from the wing part found on reunion island. malaysia's transport minister says more debris has been found on reunion. pink floyd fans should be happy. released an animation that shows the dark side of the moon. it received as much as some might as we do but we just can't see it. the pictures were taken by satellite orbiting a million miles from earth that show the moon crossing the pacific ocean near north america. ♪

singapore's global jubilee celebrations scores centerstage. >> it is blistering here in singapore, but the economy apparently is not so hot. set --arter, that can the economy prompted concerns about a possible slowdown. let's put the economy in --spective with some saying people talk about a slowdown, but seriously this kind of growth is sustainable so there is really nothing to worry about. >> they are used to seeing growth of 4% or more, even 8%, this slowdown mainly because of

the slow amount of demand, is a worry for them. >> it is a mature economy though. at thehould be growing most sustainable taste -- pace. 2% is nothing to sniff over. they need to get the productivity side going and then it will be more sustainable. , peoplee longer term are talking about it being a smart nation. is that the strategy going forward? you look at singapore, it's not constrained on the foreign worker policy side so certainly, the growth every 10 years, one million more people on the island. if you are going to slowdown population growth, the only way to sustain growth is through productivity. looks at what

they hope to achieve. >> what do you see as a key challenge for the government as it plans for the next 50 years? years were really about growing singapore to what it is today without the resources that other neighboring countries half. now, you have the people, you have the resources in terms of smart people, especially important to singapore is a brady pocket to be able to spend a lot. we talk about a smart nation and a heavy investment for the infrastructure. the worry is that you will get singaporeans who forget about the past. people will take things for granted. policy planning because the politicians may have to look on --rather than looking looking and concentrating on forward planning. it may become an issue. >> some say that

singapore's celebrations could be rained on. growth -- aect a cut in growth projection for the year. >> i think at this juncture it is more a case of timing then if he would. the economy is very dependent on the external sector. it is looking at indicators from around the world and still somewhat sluggish. they are likely to come in a growth at the lower end of the forecast. the question is if they are going to narrow to two to three or two to four. economy inapore's perspective as it relates to the rest of the world. >> i think what's ironic is that

here we have singapore 50 years ago asked to leave the federation with nothing more than 2 million people and a handful of leaders. malaysia, wealthy, very rich in resources. now, what do we see? a government still challenged with finances. under pressure because of fiscal uncertainty which is still building up. and worry about creeping credit rating downgrades. singapore is the complete opposite. they are a wealthy nation, surpluses in the government have been managed, the foreign reserve is backed by two very good agencies. in a country most worried about rising cost of a strong dollar rather than being weak although we may argue that slower growth is going to hamper expectations somewhat. day, i think the it's a much bigger problem to deal with here in singapore then

perhaps politicians in malaysia or even indonesia are being towns with. >> are there political challenges for singapore? expectations are for after the national day celebrations. what would be the political challenge? >> i think for singaporeans, cpap.re used to the the last 50 years, as people become wealthier, they are ambitious, the ex -- the expectations change. the younger generation is used to seeing or accessible freedom whatever that means. dealing with that kind of expectation and challenges, some of the current politicians who are more used to dealing with planning forward for future to sustain growth in that environment, i think it's going to be difficult in terms of calculating what singapore in

the future means to a current generation of singaporeans who are more used to wanting and satisfying short-term desires. that may continue to be the challenge going forward. forward planning may still be but is singapore's strength forward planning on a more long-term basis may be more difficult as singaporeans who are not useder on to long-term planning rather than what we have seen in the past. some economists from cimb in the background. you can hear music. the celebrations have been ongoing since this morning. singapore awaits the huge celebration on sunday. rishaad: thanks for that. -- singapore celebrates its

golden jubilee. one man is already generating headlines. we take a look at the online buzz surrounding the republican debate. ♪

rishaad: let's have a look at

what is trending on social media. we will do that with yvonne. yvonne: the gop debate is definitely the number one topic on twitter right now. the only way to describe it is fireworks. white entertaining. think an hour into this debate, we are starting to see some big topic that people actually want to hear about. the one thing right now is the economy, how are they going to continue this recovery we have seen in the u.s. all eyes are on donald trump as he is the front runner of the republicans. he has had quite a bit of headliners this morning. he said if it wasn't for him, no one would be talking about illegal immigration. he also said he has a net worth of $10 billion. a lot of the candidates are accusing donald trump of being more of a celebrity van a republican.

he has been criticized quite a bit on some of the things he says. some think it is kind of like an snl sketch. one user says they had a difficulty finding anything wrong with marco rubio. he has outshined a lot of the top 10 candidates this morning. he is on his game. tweet for you. one other user highlighting the first gop debate that we saw this afternoon which was known as the happy hour debate here it the kids table was for the bottom seven republican candidates. i still think carly fiorina tear through this group like the ghost in the darkness and grabs their spot on the docket. winnerlly emerged as the of this first debate. she was very polished. the former ceo of hp really shining because she has struggled to gain a lot of money as well as spotlight since she entered the race. she was definitely a win. some people ask why she wasn't

part of the top 10. athaad: let's have a look how the trading day is shaping up as we head towards the tokyo lunchtime break. tokyo is down at the moment a 1% ahead a quarter of of that lunchtime session break. shanghai composite, 2.4% to the upside. stock debut today taking place. china railway signals and construction update fraction at the start of it debut. singapore prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, moving to the upside. writers havetock obtained the shattered banking system.

rishaad: china railway signal rising slightly on its trading debut in hong kong. the first ipo since the stock brad began in china two months ago. billion.ny raising 1.4 use most of the acquisitions -- most of the money on acquisitions at home and abroad. htc down percent -- down 10% on

profit warning. htc as a seven. presidential hopeful donald trump hoping today's republican debate -- opening his republican debate as repeating that mexico is sending their criminals into our country -- into america. he takes the stage along with the other top 10 gop candidates in this first debate. we are 15 months away from the election. debute making a positive debut. making a positive how are we doing now with that? we are only slightly higher

currently, trading at $6.32. we have seen china railway $6.38.hit a high of we have not seen a drop below that ipo price. a lot of buying interest in this stock. it is the first ipo we have seen since the start market routes that hit mainland china. online at 1.6g billion sold to foreign investors. a total of 1.75 billion shares in this ipo which gives the company of about 55.1 billion hong kong dollars and 20% of the proceeds will go into domestic and overseas acquisitions. they are pushing forward in this high margin in what analysts say it's fairly solid and moderate growth strategies. the significance here

is that it is the first debut come up first chinese stock since that stock route which were the worst falls on july 8. of course, we have been watching to see interest. you can see from the fact that the stocks did rise white significantly on open that the appetite for ipo's maybe a little bit back. it was priced at the low end of the ipo range. analysts had been expecting earlier that perhaps we could get a listing price of eight hong kong dollars. it was definitely at the lower end of that ipo range. it is really trying to push into -- this railway back in march, we heard from the government that they really want rail to be one of the 10 major focus areas for companies to

invest in. china railway signal giving investors the appetite they are interested in in these companies moving forward, particularly on that one belt, one road strategy the government announced in 2013 to try and replicate the oh trading route on the silk road. -- old trading route on the silk road. just up by two cents at the moment. rishaad: thanks for that. analysis.more what are you making of this? >> it's not the best timing. rishaad: it certainly isn't that but at least they got it off. >> they are losing interest. , itou look at train makers has lost more than half its market value since april. rishaad: it has been difficult conditions. very thin volumes as well at

this time of year. we are seeing a slight gain but they came in at the bottom of the range as well. ask they manage -- >> they managed to get a deal done. now, china is starting a new program to support construction projects. that is going to offer some support to china rails signals. rishaad: what are people telling you about the longer-term prospects for this company? >> it depends on the success of rail, one road strategy. investors are looking for proof this really works. rishaad: thank you very much indeed. the latest on this china railway and signal construction company making its debut. let's tell you about more on this stock route because it had an under -- unaffected -- unintended side effect.

what actually happened here? the shadow banking investor we been talking about in china has changed over time. loans, we saw a lot of being extended to developers and local governments. over the recent months or years, we are seeing more of those lending going online. 10% of online lending's were extended for stock purchases. now, after the june stock market crash, the regulator actually has banned those online peer-to-peer lending platforms from stock purchases. analysts are saying it will be good for the industry in the long term. rishaad: what do they do next? some say they might consolidate. >> very good question. a few of them have already closed down. analysts are expecting that more than a thousand of them will close down in a year or so. we are indeed going to see more

consolidation because there are too many of them. there are more than 2000 of them right now. only the profitable ones will remain. the big ones will remain profitable right now. rishaad: it's all about the china banking industry isn't it? thank you very much for that. in light of that market rout. virgin australia reporting a three-year loss of almost $70 million. the carrier says it is ahead of schedule on its cost savings target. the company's low-cost brand will begin operation in the short-haul international market. virgin will increase its capacity to new zealand and the south pacific islands. the camera maker is revising its annual target and pointing that

to a weaker gain and an improvement in its product mix shares moving higher in tokyo in the morning session by nearly 5%. drivers taking legal action are preparing to group their lawsuits into phases. if they qualify as employees, they will argue how much money they are owed. it is to do be debated later today in sam at cisco. david: you guys were just talking about china. a fairly good day for the shanghai composite. 500 companies are still suspended at this halted market. s -- on our sources, the money butbe raising

it's not affecting the -- they are not marketing. optiona very popular that a lot of these companies turned to raise funds. this perhaps is slowly opening up. i think it's important to differentiate the easing of restrictions and the easing of support. those are two separate things you want to take note of. ipo's are still suspended. that's china for you right now. banks, six and a half percent. not surprising. the prospect that these banks may need to raise more cash weighing on those banks that this point. three-bagger earnings stories today. big your pick -- three earnings stories today. chemicals producer based in

melbourne, 13,000 employees. they basically cut their profit floor task. there is a lot of metrics here. ashave an impairment charge much as 1.6 billion aussie dollars. impactso see fiscal year of 10% to 15% below the median deficit if you strip out the outliers. if you do the simple math, and we did it for you here at bloomberg, that implies about 416 million to 441 million for fiscal 2015. second-quarter income basically missing, not surprising there. we leave it there for now. a look at the bank of england because it released a wave of data at its monthly meeting.

they are attempting to improve openness and transparency. >> it has been dubbed super thursday because for the first time ever, the bank of england released not just its rate decision but also the minutes from its meeting. the votes from the monetary policy committee, and its outlook for inflation as the economy -- at the economy. the rate decision was as expected. kept at af england record low. what was unexpected was that only one member of the monetary policy committee voted to raise rates. economists had expected that at least two members would have voted for tighter policies. dull start for the bank of england. they cut the near-term inflation and attributed that decision to lower energy prices. the central bank was more upbeat

about medium turn inflation and the economy in the medium-term as well. they did stress there were still downside global risks from the eurozone and china. up next, expressing serious concern. the territorial tensions in the south china sea. ♪

rishaad: tens of thousands of beene -- in myanmar have told to seek shelter as the river there burst its banks. cleareds of the country disaster zones. 300,000 are directly affected.

itsgovernment admits initial response was slow and now says people in low-lying areas should leave. a stradivarius stolen from a renowned polish-american violinist, roman totenberg, has been returned to his family 35 years later. it was handed to the fbi by the former wife of a man who was seen as a possible suspect. timber died three years ago and his family says they will sell the violin to another violinist. -- totenberg died three years ago the japanese prime minister is being told that the country a heavy burden from a reckless conflict. ofis the 70th anniversary its apparent defeat. he will speak about japan in the 20th century and its vision for the future. his design to beef up japan's military has already raised the alarm in china and other

neighbors. a statement exposing serious concerns over territory disputes in the south china sea. the topic dominated discussions in the discussion in kuala lumpur this week. >> they could not agree. n is 10 nations. they almost in release it at all. it was supposed to come wednesday afternoon and it came out a few hours after the closing press conference. told by officials that it was divisions over this out tennessee language because the -- south china sea language because the group cannot agree. within asean, some of the nations have competing claims

would china. these have been vietnam, and the philippines being the most aggressive to try to get china to back down in the south china sea. other countries don't have any and areial he's -- beef much more reluctant to anger china. there is no mention of china in relation to the south china sea. rishaad: i was interested to see the other day that china said, because it's about land reclamation with a lot of these islands, but a lot of these islands are not really islands. >> china's point is that they are not the first to do it. the runway they are building in the reef will likely be something like 3000 meters long, capable of landing the entire military aircraft fleet. that gives them a lot of range. the other nations don't have that kind of infrastructure to be able to compete. vietnam,hilippines,

they just don't have the muscle china has. they all have done some kind of land reclamation. there are a lot of competing claims. rishaad: every time they get together, they are trying to build this regional framework, this free market economy modeled on the early days of the eu. they can't get down and talk about that because of this. making say they are progress. it is supposed to be completed this year so we are running out of time. the focus has always been and always seems to be on the south china sea. the issue seems to dominate and china does not want to talk about it at all. they say it's not an appropriate forum. it's a $2 trillion economy. 800 million people or something like that. it's a huge area and this has been a huge distraction for them. rishaad: coming up next,

connecting india. we will head to mom by to find out how the country's billionaires are battling for 4g supremacy. -- mumbai ♪

rishaad: welcome back. jakarta posting a profit despite a profit posting despite the biggest recall in history. they also raised for your profit in sales. customers got paid for repairs. they raised to nearly $400,000. a profit surge in soft banks.

$1.7 billion ahead of the estimates of 1.2. revival andseeing a says it is committed to turning sprint around. rising 4.5%. think i am being overly optimistic about sprint as there is no concrete progress i can show you at this point. i have exactly the same positive feeling as i had when we turned around the business with yahoo! broadband. i strongly believe i made the right decision to buy sprint and i have absolutely no intention of selling it. asian countries won't list rates despite weakening currencies. the bank says it is unlikely the region center banks will hike because of inflation levels in several countries remain comfortable and risks in trade and foreign debt are limited.

the worst of 11 of 12 asian counties have slumped against the dollar this year. trading is over in india. it comes against the background of an indian telecommunications companies saying it will expand its service to 300 towns. it will start a severe battle of 4g supremacy. we have been tracking this in mumbai. the number of mobile web users and yet is expected to grow nearly 3% between 2014 and 2017 and to reach about 314 million by the end of 2017. according to reports, the action in the 4g market is heating up days after we heard from india's largest company that it would launch its 4g services by the first of the season in october. the largest telecom operator on

thursday announced its launch of high-speed internet in 296 towns in india. 4g services were launched earlier in select cities. with increasing competition, we also heard from waterfall which announced that all 3g data packs in mumbai will now offer double the data than previously in effect. i want to very quickly talk about some of the big earnings that we have lined up for today. mahindra as well as startup motors. --rtup motors is considering motors and-- tata

mahindra will be reporting results. it chinaoutlook for and the u.s.. -- by plan by can thaty going forward is eminem will be declaring a good set of numbers. not a good quarter after all after profits after taxes went down nearly 16%. margins expected to be lower. we have seen a lot of commentary instant -- in terms of the monsoon likely to come. rishaad: have a great weekend. at thisve another look republican presidential debate taking place very hot on social media. yvonne: quite entertaining.

a lot of headlines coming out of that. a lot of topics were discussed in the last hour. they were just talking about the iran deal. a lot of people making jabs at president obama and john kerry is not getting a better deal. sociallked about the issues, abortion, same-sex marriage, and race relations. john kasich really generated applause from the crowd as well as people on social media. he said that one of his daughters happens to be gay -- he said that if one of his daughters was gay, he would love them anyway. he recently attended a same-sex wedding. that triggered quite a reaction. this user said that john kasich is doing something bold by not pandering to the base. wonder if he gets points for courage and maybe respect for that. also, abortion was a big issue and of course all eyes on donald trump, the front runner of the republican presidential race so far. some people say that marco rubio

may emerge as the winner of this so far. rishaad: that is it for "trending business." edge" isd, "asia coming up. ♪

rishaad: that is the international finance center right here in hong kong. this is "asia edge." ♪ rishaad: a look at our top stories. the first ipo since the mainland stock route makes a cautious debut in hong kong. .t's the wrong tone htc shares down by the maximum in taipei, news of a lost five times worse than expected.

debate, trump is literally center stage as the long road to the white house. shery: also coming up this hour, marking time. the rba pushes back its forecast for australian growth. it says unemployment has probably peaked. serious concerns, criticism of in the waterson but refuses to single out china. itsingapore celebrates golden jubilee, we will be there live to look at its plans for the next 50 years. all of that and much more on this friday edition of "asia edge." david: it is friday. i am keeping my eye on the markets. it is mostly decline across the region following the declines we saw in europe and on the u.s. volumes quite thin ahead of the u.s.