Japanese multinationals are cashing in on a weaker yen, prompting a wave of earnings forecast upgrades in the latest reporting season. Toyota, Honda, Sony and Ryohin Keikaku have all revised their guidance higher. Okasan Securities data shows 159 of about 1,600 Topix constituents have raised full-year forecasts since July 1, versus just 12 downgrades — an adjustment ratio of 86%, the highest since fiscal 2016.

PANews’ weekly funding roundup showed a pickup in crypto deal activity from Aug. 3 to Aug. 9, with 12 disclosed blockchain financing events totaling more than $94.9 million. Capital was concentrated in infrastructure, stablecoins, real-world assets and centralized finance, while DePIN, GameFi and rewards platforms also logged fresh deals. The headline M&A transaction came from Mastercard, which said it had completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK, a deal previously reported in March as being worth up to $1.8 billion. On the financing side, Yellow Card announced a $40 million strategic round backed by SC Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital. Other disclosed transactions included rounds for Blockspace, MAGNE.AI, InvestiFi, JPYC, Dow Protocol, Vangrid and Bundle. PANews also tracked a separate wave of AI and robotics funding, where large checks continued to cluster around infrastructure, cloud capacity, optical networking and enterprise agent platforms, with Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and the newly launched 224 Ventures also stepping up commitments to the sector.

Suno says it plans to add watermarks to all audio generated by its models in the coming weeks, giving partner platforms a way to label or block AI-made tracks. The company did not say what technology it will use, did not provide a launch date, and did not disclose how download limits may change. The announcement came after a German court ruled on July 31 that Suno violated local music licensing rules, while Sony’s copyright case against the company in the U.S. also moved forward in July at the summary judgment stage. Suno said the watermark would embed an inaudible code in the waveform and would be durable, resistant to tampering, and not affect audio quality. The company said the goal is to help partners fight fraud and abuse. Still, the legal focus remains on how Suno obtained training data, not whether finished outputs carry labels. The report also points to a 2025 data breach that allegedly showed Suno scraped material from YouTube, Deezer, and Genius for model training, an incident that has since led to a class action lawsuit in Massachusetts.

Stablecoin payments platform Yellow Card has completed a strategic equity round of $40 million, pushing its cumulative funding past the $120 million mark. The capital will back an expansion plan that includes scaling the Global USD Accounts product and adding stablecoin and local payment options across Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Four investors participated in the round: SC Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital, and Blockchain Capital. Yellow Card is also working with commercial banks worldwide to handle cross-border dollar transfers on stablecoin rails, positioning the setup as an alternative to the traditional Swift system. Its enterprise offering lets clients hold U.S. dollars, convert them into stablecoins, and send or receive local currency through local payment rails. The platform operates in more than 50 countries. CoinDesk reported the financing news.

VAST, a Chinese AI 3D modeling startup backed by Alibaba and Baidu, is weighing a Hong Kong initial public offering, according to Bloomberg. The company has discussed a potential share sale with Bank of America Corp and China International Capital Corp. The move comes shortly after VAST announced a new funding round of nearly $200 million in June, a deal that reportedly lifted its valuation to about $1 billion and pushed it into the ranks of China’s newest AI unicorns. Bloomberg said the round was led by Ince Capital, with Primavera Capital and existing investor Jingya Capital also participating. Founded in Beijing in 2023 by Song Yachen, a former member of the founding team at large language model developer MiniMax, VAST is known for its AI 3D generation platform Tripo Studio. The product lets users create textured and detailed 3D models from text prompts or uploaded photos, with export options for major game engines and design software. The company says it has about 20 million users worldwide, with the United States as its largest market, followed by Europe, Japan, and South Korea. VAST has also worked with NetEase on the role-playing game Where Winds Meet and has project collaborations with Sony and other companies.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Kumamoto on July 28 briefly halted production at Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), TSMC’s chip venture in the prefecture, and paused construction at its second plant. The disruption revived a familiar question in the market: why would TSMC place such a large wafer-fab investment in a high-risk seismic zone? The source article argues the answer lies less in luck than in industrial arithmetic. Kumamoto sits inside a semiconductor cluster built over roughly six decades across Kyushu, with nearby suppliers, customers, water resources and lower power costs already in place. JASM’s two plants also carry more than $20 billion in combined equipment investment, while Japanese government subsidies for the first and second fabs total about ¥1.2 trillion, covering roughly 40% of spending. The article also points to precedent. Sony suffered ¥28 billion in losses in the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, yet stayed in Kikuyo and kept expanding. In that framing, the real comparison is not between risk and no risk, but between recovery costs after a quake and the far higher cost of relocating an entire supply-chain ecosystem.

Wall Street rebounded sharply after the prior session’s sell-off, with Microsoft’s earnings report becoming the session’s main catalyst. The company’s Azure cloud business grew 43% at constant currency, ahead of expectations, while lower-than-expected capital spending and a commitment to positive cash flow in fiscal 2027 helped calm concerns that AI investment was becoming too costly. Microsoft shares surged 15.51%, adding about $450 billion in market value in a single day. The move helped drive the Dow up 1.19%, the S&P 500 up 1.66%, the Nasdaq up 2.78%, and the Nasdaq 100 up 3.36%, while the VIX fell 17.33% to 17.08. Semiconductors and memory names led the rally, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rising 8.19% and the Roundhill Memory ETF climbing nearly 17%. At the same time, traders continued to monitor Middle East developments, a possible OPEC+ output increase of 188,000 barrels per day in September, and sharp currency moves in Japan and South Korea. Market participants are also watching several near-term events, including the Trump administration’s AI regulatory framework deadline on Aug. 1, South Korea’s July export data, and the Aug. 2 OPEC+ meeting.

A broad risk repricing swept across markets on July 30, linking sharp losses in China’s semiconductor names, divergent reactions to earnings from Microsoft and Meta, a record retail selloff in U.S. equities, a spike in crude prices after a Middle East escalation, and deleveraging pressure in South Korea. In mainland China, the STAR 50 fell 5.38% and the ChiNext Index lost 3.97%, while 83 stocks hit limit down and 3,635 declined. Semiconductor packaging, PCB, AI chip and optical module names were hit across the board, with Zhongji Innolight posting 59.7 billion yuan in turnover, its highest ever for a single day. In the U.S., Microsoft beat revenue expectations and reported Azure annual revenue above $100 billion, while Meta topped revenue forecasts but missed on earnings per share and saw Reality Labs lose $4.6 billion in the quarter. Vanda Research said retail investors logged their largest one-day net sale since the March 2020 COVID crash. Elsewhere, reports in the article said Iran fired ballistic missiles at the U.S., pushing WTI and Brent sharply higher. In South Korea, Samsung Electronics posted record second-quarter revenue and operating profit, yet local equities still traded lower as the market focused on deleveraging.