About a week ago Wuliangye notified dealers it has cancelled certain prior channel policies and set a floor: shipment price for 8th‑generation Wuliangye must not be below 800 yuan per bottle. The brand warned it will impose penalties, including fines, for low‑price cross‑region sales and dumping, with measures scaled to severity. Dealers say in practice penalties are unlikely unless there is large‑scale, malicious channel‑jumping.

Federal Reserve: Seasonally adjusted outstanding U.S. commercial paper rose $1.6bn in the week to Aug 12; not seasonally adjusted balance fell $110m. Outstanding foreign financial commercial paper rose $10.9bn in the same week.

The yen hovered near the key 160-per-dollar threshold on Thursday, trading around 159.36 per USD. Sources said Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government supports rate hikes and that the next Bank of Japan policy move could come in September or October; the BOJ and government are reportedly aligned on near-term tightening amid concerns a weak yen is lifting prices and to reinforce recent US-Japan currency interventions. Investors said the disclosures had little market impact, as markets have largely priced in BOJ hikes. A wide US-Japan rate gap and Japan's heavy public debt continue to weigh on the currency.