• Vaccine availability improving: Bill Gates commented that while vaccine availability in emerging markets was low in the first half of 2021, the situation is now improving.

• Indonesian recovery: Indonesia reported the lowest new COVID-19 cases in over a year.

• Thailand re-opening delayed: Thailand’s government announced that the re-opening of five major tourist destinations will be delayed one month until 1 November.

• Chinese import substitution: Two industry associations issued reports suggesting that the Chinese government is looking to replace imports with domestic goods. That could be a threat to foreign companies selling to China.

Asian stock ideas (+1 bond idea)

• Wickhams Hill on taxi and public transport operator ComfortDelGro (SGX: C52 — US$2.5 billion)

• New Vila Equity Research on Cambodian casino operator NagaCorp’s 7.95 bonds due 2024 (ISIN: XS2197693265; par value: US$451 million)

• The searching 4 value blog with quick thoughts on Oriental Watch (SEHK: 398 — US$204 million)

• nipponNuggets on high-flying Japanese no-code platform Yappli (TSE: 4168 — US$468 million)

• Swan Street Research wrote a bearish report on Chinese “hologram company” WiMi (NASDAQ: WIMI — US$379 million) (h/t: The Bear Cave)

Long-form writing

(estimated reading time)

• I wrote an essay about Marc Faber’s life and career (20 mins)

• GlobalStockPicking blog with an update of his value-oriented portfolio (8 mins)

• Daniel Tabbush discussing how Japanese banks might offer high earnings growth coming out of the pandemic, given already-low ROAs (2 mins)

• Technical analyst Jason Geopfert: the selling in Hong Kong nears panic proportions, indicating a bottom (2 mins)

• Michael Pettis: What does Evergrande meltdown mean for China? (14 mins)

• Anne Stevenson-Yang: Will the wind-up of Evergrande ultimately lead to government ownership of housing? (5 mins)

• Aaron Pek going through China Evergrande’s accounting (18 mins)

• Kalani Scarrott on the Asian dairy industry (10 mins)

• Bireme Capital’s third part in its series on what it perceives to be a bubble in speculative growth stocks (34 mins) (Part 1, Part 2)

• In its 3Q21 quarterly review, BIS warns of a bubble in green tech. Summary (3 mins) and entire report (1:26 hours)

• James Montier’s 2nd article on what to do in an inflationary climate (19 mins)

Podcasts and videos

(listening time)

• Jeff Gundlach on how inflationary pressures are building (51 mins)

• Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei discusses how Xi Jinping is rewriting the rules for the Chinese economy (20 mins)

• Travis Lundy explains the China Evergrande situation (56 mins)

• Richard McGregor speaks to Red Roulette author Desmond Shum (31 mins)

• SCMP’s Josh Ye on Tencent’s efforts to comply with new regulation (28 mins)

• HK-based value investor Graham Rhodes on video game stocks (48 mins)

• Professor Yoichiro Sato discusses who might replace Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga (32 mins)

Chart of the week – China’s central bank PBOC injecting large amounts of capital into the interbank market

Thanks for reading, and I wish you a great week ahead!

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