The earnings season is in full force, and so far, 1Q21 earnings seem to have beaten expectations.

Hong Kong and Singapore are set to start a travel bubble on May 26.

Singapore is experiencing a wave of new COVID-19 infections, mostly centred around a cluster at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

At the end of April, Singapore replaced the LIBOR-linked SGD swap offer rate (SOR) with the Singapore overnight rate average (SORA).

Korea’s short-selling ban ended yesterday. Despite this, Kospi has been surprisingly stable this morning.

Tokyo Olympics is still going ahead, but the slow roll-out of vaccinations is frustrating the population and putting the games into question.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken was openly critical of the PRC in an interview with 60 Minutes.

Company-specific reports

• I wrote a deep-dive on the ongoing turnaround in Malaysian cigarette company British American Tobacco Malaysia (KLSE: ROTH — US$999 million)

• ValueInvestingBlog.net on Malaysian micro-cap linen manufacturer Yoong Onn Corporation (KLSE: YOCB — US$37 million)

• NipponNuggets on Japanese software stock Sansan (TSE: 4443 — US$2,569 million)

• Tao Value’s quarterly letter discussing a surprising new position in Tianli Education (SEHK: 1773 — US$1,801 million)

• Fast Company discussed Nintendo’s long-term strategy (TSE: 7974 — US$68 billion)

Long-form writing

• I made a few predictions about the electric vehicle sector

• The Diff makes a case for Japanese stocks ($)

• Voss Capital on the Japanese Bubble of the 1980s

• Open Insights: Oil’s recovery and look ahead

• Bloomberg: Cars make a Covid comeback, and that means burning more oil ($)

• Andrew Batson: Demographics might change everything for China (except the growth model)

• Henry Kissinger warns of colossal risks in US-China tensions

• Financial Times: Big Four auditors squeezed between US and China over access to Chinese accounting records ($)

• Hong Kong passes a law that can stop people from leaving

• Taiwan bans recruitment for jobs in China to combat brain drain

• Lilian Li: State of Chinese cloud (part 2)

Tweets

• China Tech Investor podcast host visits a Cainiao pick-up spot in China

• Chinese survey: Would you still buy a Tesla car?

• An overview of Japanese SaaS stocks

• The Rational Walk summarising the Berkshire Hathaway 2021 annual meeting

• Soros investment strategies explained, by an ex-Point72 analyst

Podcasts and videos

• Thailand’s Marc Faber speaks about speculation and politics

• Singapore-based Jim Rogers speaks to Raoul Pal about his optimism about China

• Ned Davis talks macro on Renaissance Macro Research’s podcast

• Ethan Widell at Ironhold Capital on the case for Indian stocks

• Political economy editor Zhou Xin from SCMP discusses China’s “two sessions”

• Gideon Rachman speaks to Abraar Karan at Harvard on India’s coronavirus surge

Chart of the week – PRC copper imports are surprisingly high

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