We open with a look at China's banking sector. Bank of China said Thursday that its net profit for the fourth quarter of 2017 fell about 10 percent. The decline was smaller than analysts has expected. Profits at China's fourth-largest lender by assets reached 26.9 billion yuan in the quarter to beat estimates. That came as net profit rose to 172 billion yuan for all of 2017, up nearly 5 percent on year. BoC's non-performing loan ratio was 1.45 percent at the end of December. That was slightly higher than at the end of September.