News Flash: Trump Inks Order to Ban US Firms' Deal with Bytedance, Tencent

TikTok: Beneath Its Fun Exterior Lies A Sinister Purpose

The US Government has announced last night on the ban on transactions of US companies with TikTok's parent ByteDance and WeChat's parent TENCENT that will be effective in 45 days. 

This will likely push ByteDance to hasten the sales of their US operations as if they do not move ahead with this move, they may land up in a situation where they are not even allowed to operate anymore if the US government bans the use of TikTok. 

Source: AAStocks


Tencent President Cashes In $131 Million of Shares as Price Surges - Caixin  Global

In the case of WeChat, it seems that WeChat does not hold a very big market base in US based on the website, statista.com. Based on the stats as of September 2019, the number of active users are only around 1.48 million although the total number of users may be higher than this. As I am unable to find any statistics for 2020, assume with a higher penetration percentage of 20%, that will indicate a total number of active users of around 1.8 million. I would think that the impact on WeChat may not be significant to Tencent but more on disruption of services from the existing users in US. 

However, the other impact for Tencent which is not yet known is on the mobile gaming side of things. I believe this plays a big part in Tencent's growth and if the US government continues to take this anti China approach, gaming sector from Tencent may be hurted badly as a result. 

  Statistic: Most popular mobile messaging apps in the United States as of September 2019, by monthly active users (in millions) | Statista
Find more statistics at Statista  




Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

Hang Seng Tech Index closing 0.39% higher

Courtesy of AAStocks

Hang Seng Tech Index was down almost the entire day before reversing into positive territory towards the end of the trading session. Eventually it close +0.39% higher for the day and with XD INC as its best performer, showing an impressive gain of +11.639% for today. If you noticed, the smaller cap companies are making big moves over the past few days while the large caps are generally either flat or showing gains of 1-2%.  

The latest news from US with regards to banning more apps like WeChat did not help the HSTI stocks with Tencent going as low as 543.50 (-3.11%) during the day before closing at 555.50 (-0.98%). I would expect more volatility to come with the US China technology war and China may start to target US companies in retaliation. 
Courtesy of AAStocks




Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

Hang Seng Tech Index up 1.49%

Courtesy of AAStocks

Up 3 days in a row for this week, the HSTI is maintaining its upward momentum pretty well with Nasdaq in the green last night too. Also to take note for today, the top performer is WEIMOB INC which went up more than 10% and followed by BYD which has an impressive gain of +8.219%.

The bigger constituents for HSTI did a pretty good move today with Tencent up by +2%, Alibaba up by +0.788%, Xiaomi up by +0.516% and Meituan up just a fraction by +0.183% considering it did a big up move just yesterday. 

Only 10 losers for the HSTI for today which again are the smaller constituent stocks apart from Alibaba Health. 

Courtesy of AAStocks


Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

Market Notes for 4 Aug (US Markets)

It was a decent move last night in the US markets with all the major indices moving up:

Dow: +0.62%
S&P 500: +0.36%
Nasdaq: +0.35%
Russell 2000: +0.69%

Today Russell leads the markets with some of the mega tech stocks like Google, Microsoft and Facebook taking some hit, however markets still held up ok for now. 

Energy sector was the winner with most of the oil companies making a good gain, and BP despite announcing dividend cuts was the big winner at +7.47%. 

4 factors that make the stock market move up & down | everyday investor

Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

News Flash: Gold just hit a fresh record high — but some say silver is set to overtake

Is There Real Shortage of Physical Gold & Silver?
Silver is set to outshine gold, even as prices of both precious metals soar in the midst of a faltering global economy and a weakening U.S. dollar.

This year, gold prices have shot to record highs not seen since September 2011. Investors have been fleeing to “safe haven” assets as the pandemic shows no signs of abating.

Gold prices hit a new record close of $2,021 per ounce overnight — settling above $2,000 for the first time. It was last trading at $2,020.30. Geopolitical unrest overnight likely added to the spike. The blasts in Beirut, which killed dozens and wounded thousands, “probably (added) to the shine of Gold above $2020,” said a note from Mizuho Bank.

Source: CNBC

Gold and Silver has made big moves overnight again, with Gold Futures trading at $2,032 per ounce and Silver at $25.99. Its move is in anticipation of the Fed's potential actions which the Fed is looking at maintaining 2% inflation. Lots of media attention is now back on Gold and Silver as compared to Tesla which is no longer the talk of the town currently. 

Looking at the GLD monthly chart, we can see that it has now closed above its all time high in 2011 but the charts may look overbought within 2019/2020 but if we look at the consolidation, it looks to have started since 2013 (7 years) before one starts to make a decent gain from Gold. 

GLD monthly

Looking at the SLV monthly chart, it looks like the move started in July to close the month of July with a massive gain of 63.99%! Looking at the broader trend, the highs for SLV was back in 2011 at $48.35 and we will see if Silver will catch up to what Gold is doing which would mean a possible gain of almost close to 50%. 

SLV monthly




Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

News Flash: Chinese state media slams U.S. as a ‘rogue country’ for its planned ‘smash and grab’ of TikTok

China and U.S. flags are seen near a TikTok logo in this illustration picture taken July 16, 2020.
China and U.S. flags are seen near a TikTok logo in this illustration picture taken July 16, 2020.
Florence Lo | Reuters

Chinese state media labeled the U.S. a “rogue country” and dubbed the potential sale of social media firm TikTok to Microsoft as “theft,” adding that Beijing could retaliate if a deal is sealed. 

Source: CNBC

As mentioned in my previous post we can see that the Chinese government is likely going to show retaliation with the actions of the US government with Apple possibly as the main target? 

I am not a user of TikTok but I am not sure what type of technology theft Microsoft would gain with TikTok based on the article. I have seen videos of TikTok and its a social network for sharing user-generated videos which to me the most valuable part of it is this network that has been built. 

Technology wise it would be similar to Youtube or what Facebook is offering unless I am wrong? 


Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

Hang Seng Tech Index closing at +1.98% higher

Courtesy of AAStocks

Following last night's positive gain in Nasdaq, HSTI has again closed positive for today with a gain of 144.14 points (+1.98%). 

Looking at the top performers for today, HENGTEN was the big winner with a big up move of +15.546% and following that is MEITUAN at +8.674%. There were 7 stocks that were in the red for today with SMIC dropping -2.556%. The overall sentiment for HSTI still looks positive and we are still waiting to see when the ETF fund will be created. 

Courtesy of AAStocks


While Tencent and Sunny Optical are included in the benchmark Hang Seng Index, Alibaba, Meituan and Xiaomi, are not, which means most ETFs that track the main index are yet to cover these behemoths.




Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

News Flash: Ant Group Intends to Fetch US$30B in A+H Listing, IPO in Sep Soonest: Report

Ant Financial

Ant Group, a subsidiary of BABA-SW (09988.HK) intended to fetch approximately US$30 billion through A+H listing, Caixin reported. 

If the fundraising amount was nailed, Ant Group's IPO will topple Saudi Aramco's US$29.4 billion.

With the listing preparation under brisk processing, Ant Group was expected to begin IPO arrangement in September or October, the report added.

Source: AAStocks

This is currently touted as the largest IPO ever, even exceeding Saudi Aramco that went public on Dec 2019. Its interesting to see as Alibaba has a 33% stake in Ant Financial and apart from Alibaba listed in both NYSE and HKEx, Alibaba also owns Alibaba Health through its subsidiary Ali JK which holds 30.79% of Alibaba Health. 

Behind the scene before Jack Ma retired, we can see that he has multiple businesses across his parent company and has consistently acquired more businesses before he handed the reins over to Daniel Zhang. 



Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

News Flash: BP reports second-quarter loss after major write downs, halves dividend

A BP company logo at a gas station in London, U.K.
A BP company logo at a gas station in London, U.K.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Energy giant BP reported a significant loss for the second quarter on Tuesday, after downgrading the value of some of its assets on expectations of lower commodity prices.

Second-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, came in at a loss of $6.7 billion, meeting expectations of analysts polled by Refinitiv. That compared with net profit of $2.8 million for the same period a year earlier.

BP also announced that it had halved its dividend to 5.25 cents per share for the quarter, compared to 10.5 cents per share for the first three months of the year.

Source: CNBC

As i have shared in my previous posts, apart from EU banks it seems that EU entities are all pressured to cut or halt dividends as losses grow. For the energy sector, it is not expected to see any profits at least till Q3/Q4 since countries are starting to open up since May/June. 

However, this move on BP is not going to be positive as Exxon has also announced their earnings last week and with no intention of cutting their dividends. 


Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!

Market Notes: Lost Decade in Singapore Straits Times Index (STI)

If you have noticed, I don't really post much of the Singapore companies that are listed in the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX). 

If we compare the charts of STI against HSI and S&P 500, we will notice that STI has been really under water and with this pandemic, it is almost like a lost decade with no real economic move for Singapore blue chips in particular. 

STI performance for past 13 years since GFC (2007 - 2020)

With its peak during 2007 at 3837 and crashing through the floor during 2008-2009, it has never managed to break its highs and its last highest point was at 3624 during May 2018 before starting the downtrend. It is good to note that STI has always been a very sensitive barometer against the global economy as Singapore is always heavy in global trade. 

However in recent years, STI has failed to lure any big Tech firms to be listed in Singapore resulting in the 3 local banks forming a big part of STI.  

HSI performance for the past 13 years since GFC (2007-2020)

Looking at the performance of Hang Seng Index for the past 13 years as well, it exceed its 2007 highs at 31,897 during Jan 2018 at 33,484 before it came tumbling down. You may notice a trend that STI and HSI both started the downtrend in 2018 and it was the year where the trade war started.  

However coming back to the original point, HSI was poised to perform pretty well if not for the trade war and the Hong Kong protest that consumed the city. Now with the new Hang Seng Tech Index in play, we can see that Hong Kong is drawing lots of big Chinese tech companies to list in HSI and also in Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) which they are able to avoid scrutiny from the US government. 

S&P 500 performance for the past 13 years since GFC (2007-2020)

Needless to say, S&P 500 has almost increased up to 400% since its low in Mar 2009. This is fueled by limitless money printing from the Feds since then and markets have never looked back. We will notice that the dip started in Oct 2018 and primarily due to the trade war between US and China, Fed increasing its interest rate since 2009 and also tightening their monetary policies. 

Liquidity has always been the game changer here which is likely the main reason why we did not see a total market collapse in Feb/Mar 2020 when the Fed announced QE again with unlimited printing. 

I will cover more about what makes up the STI and some of the blue chips that people may have invested but would likely be in the red over the past 10 years. 


Disclaimer: Whatever posted here is purely my personal view. It is not an inducement to trade and not responsible for any losses. Tips and News might just be rumors in the market. I take no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of reading my analyses, judgement and opinions. Trade with care and diligence please!