Monday morning links
Omicron leads to mild symptoms. The hospitality rate for Omicron was 91% lower than that of Delta in South Africa. And out of those hospitalised, the fatality rate was 2/3 lower than that of Delta.
Chinese offline grocery chains have been suffering from online competition. But according to China tech specialist Michael Norris, the monthly active users for Chinese group buying sites is now on a downwards trajectory. That suggests that competition within the grocery sector is easing.
Singapore increased the stamp duties on property purchases to over 30% for foreign buyers and 17% for citizens buying a second property. If history is any guide, transaction volumes will likely fall over the near term.
Farrer Wealth Advisors on Singaporean ride-hailing company Grab (Part 1; Part 2) (GRAB US — US$28 billion)
(Largest new programs as % of market cap; min market cap: US$50m)
Maxvalu Tokai (11%) (8198 JP — US$857 million)
J Frontier (5%) (2934 JP — US$87 million)
Kumiai Chemical Industry (4%) (4996 JP — US$917 million)
Ebara Foods (4%) (2819 JP — US$248 million)
Korea Business News (3%) (039340 KS — US$144 million)
(Largest over past 7 days; min market cap: US$50m)
AAC Technologies: US$4.2 million (2018 HK — US$4.8 billion)
Hopson Development: US$3.1 million (754 HK — US$4.8 billion)
Huasheng Int’l: US$1.0 million (1323 HK — US$843 million)
Riverstone Holding: US$0.7 million (RSTON SP — US$754 million)
2S Metal PCL: US$0.6 million (2S TB — US$85 million)
(estimated reading time) ($ = behind a paywall)
I ran a ”magic formula” screen for countries in the Asia-Pacific (11 mins) ($)
The December 2021 Asian Century Stocks portfolio update (9 mins) ($)
GMO’s 3Q21 letter makes a case for investing in non-US stocks (19 mins)
Muddy Waters’ report on KE Holdings provides insight into what you should look out for when investing in private Chinese companies (77 pages)
Verdad: real estate prices are a predictor of bank stock performance (6 mins)
Bloomberg: The ESG mirage (19 mins)
How China’s Shein beat Amazon at its own game (17 mins)
Isaac Stone Fish: the Chinese government is using its anti-monopoly law to crack down on private businesses (3 mins)
Summary of the key tenets of Xi Jinping’s common prosperity program (12 pages)
A Google, Bain & Temasek report on the Southeast Asian tech industry (129 pages)
(listening time) ($ = behind a paywall)
Jeff Gundlach on the DoubleLine webcast dated 7 December 2021 (48 mins)
Ray Dalio on his latest book Principles for dealing with the changing world order (59 mins)
Mike Green discussing retail speculation, crypto and ETFs (54 mins)
Bill Miller on Wealthtrack discussing where he finds value now (26 mins)
Michael Mauboussin on the Masters in Business podcast discussing the latest version of his book Expectations Investing (1:32 hours)
Yours truly was on three podcasts the past week: Narrative Monopoly (1 hour), Market Champions (54 mins) and Seeking Value (49 mins)
Felix Zulauf on the Grant Williams podcast (58 mins) ($)
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