CL HKEX posted a 27 percent jump in quarterly profit, well ahead of forecasts, on reviving mainland connect flows and renewed IPO appetite. On the trading floor and in the coffee shops nearby, there is a shift in tone that the numbers confirm but cannot fully account for. The exchange has been through quiet years; this quarter feels like the city remembering what it is good at.-- CL

MB Three of the world's strategic transit corridors are under active pressure on the same Tuesday: Hormuz, the Taiwan Strait, and the airspace between South Asia's two nuclear-armed states. The restraining mechanisms that are supposed to prevent this from compounding are operating on habit and deterrence rather than any coordinated design. What the day's geography tells you is that the international order is being tested at its seams, not at any single point.-- MB