CXSE

Apple iPhone Supply Disruptions Not Likely to Hurt Markets with Overall Holiday Sales Reportedly Strong

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Image: Holiday sales are expected to expand ~2.5% in 2022 over very strong growth in 2021 and 2020. Image Source: Adobe By Brian Nelson, CFA Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook seemingly have worked out a plan for Apple to keep advertising on the Twitter platform after what looked to be a temporary pause by the iPhone maker. Though the news is immaterial to our thesis on Apple in any respect, it was good to see the two tech giants work whatever differences they had out. Certainly, a fallout between Musk and Cook would not be a good thing for the tech sector and innovation, more broadly, as the two wield large influences across Silicon … Read more

Chinese Stocks Bludgeoned!

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Image: Large cap Chinese equities are now back to levels first reached more than 15 years ago on a price-only basis, to levels first attained in early 2006. By Brian Nelson, CFA Successful investing is as much about selecting big winners such as Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) as it is about avoiding big losers – and wow have Chinese stocks been bludgeoned! The iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI) traded down nearly 10% on October 24, 2022, putting its 5-year declines at a whopping 50%+, on a price-only basis. The FXI is now back to levels, on a price-only basis, first reached at the beginning of 2006, more than 15 years ago. We don’t include any Chinese ADRs in … Read more

What You Should Know About MMORPGs

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The Valuentum analyst team talks about the Chinese gaming industry and the financials of Tencent (TCEHY) and Netease (NTES), in particular. Both generate strong free cash flow and have solid balance sheets, but there are myriad risks to consider, too. ~5 mins. Podcast no longer available. Transcript as follows. Chris Araos: Welcome to Valuentum’s podcast. This is Christopher Araos, and joining us today is Brian Nelson and Kris Rosemann. Today, we’re going to talk about the MMORPG landscape in China. Brian? Brian Nelson, CFA: Thanks for that Chris. I think just to give a little bit of background MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role-playing (PC-client) games. Wow, that’s a mouthful. These are very, very popular games across the globe … Read more

China

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Image Source: Mike Behnken Our concerns about China are not new, and neither are your concerns. The potential Treasury Secretary-to-be, Carl Icahn, that is one in a world of a Donald Trump presidency, which has become all-the-more likely now that Ted Cruz and John Kasich have stepped aside, recently brought to light the differences between a capitalist society such as that of the US and a communist nation such as that of China (FXI). Unlike the US government which isn’t necessarily anti-business, even if it isn’t pro-business if existing corporate tax rates are any measure, the Chinese government can make things awfully hard on any company doing business within its borders, if it wants to. What Icahn has been referring … Read more

ICYMI: Time to Consider Buying Chinese Equities? Not Exactly.

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This article was originally published August 26, 2021. Image Shown: Shares of Alibaba Group have plummeted over the past year in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown on China’s domestic tech and fintech titans. By Callum Turcan Many would argue that the key event that kicked off Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on its domestic tech giants started back in October 2020 when the once domestically revered entrepreneur Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce, fintech, payment solutions, and cloud computing giant Alibaba Group (BABA), gave a speech critical of Chinese regulators. A WSJ article published August 20, Jack Ma’s Costliest Business Lesson: China Has Only One Leader, covered the situation in great detail. Mr. Ma noted at the time that he viewed Beijing’s … Read more