Monday morning links
There is an increasing amount of evidence that Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines don’t work as well against B.1.617, the variant responsible for India’s recent outbreak.
China’s Jan-Apr thermal power generation rose +12% compared to the same period two years ago, despite a tepid consumer recovery.
Net inflows of funds into China reached a 7-year high in 1Q21 as global investors purchased Chinese bonds.
Bytedance founder Zhang Yiming stepped down as CEO, the latest in a long string of Chinese tech CEOs handing over the leadership of their companies. One day later, the government accused TikTok of improperly collecting data.
The retail tranche of JD Logistics IPO was over-subscribed 200x and raised US$3.2 billion despite a recent weakening of Hong Kong’s IPO market.
According to defence minister Nobuo Kishi, Japan is likely to scrap the 1% GDP cap on defence spending.
Singapore’s government said it would ramp up its vaccination drive to give all adults one COVID-19 shot by early August.
Company-specific reports
Front Month Substack discussing the future of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (SEHK:388 — US$74 billion)
A new research company called Swan Street Research published a negative report on Chinese social media company Yalla Group (NYSE:YALA — US$2.4 billion)
nipponNuggets on Japanese business communication app Chatwork (SEHK:4448 — US$346 million)
The Value Investing Substack discussing Malaysia’s Innature Berhad (KLSE:INNATURE — US$105 million)
Long-form writing
I wrote a post on China’s housing market, arguing that it is unbalanced
I also dug into Asia’s dairy industry and the investable universe of stocks in the sector ($)
A new report from Michael Mauboussin: The Economics of Customer Businesses
GMO makes that case that Japanese value stocks have low CAPEs and should outperform over the next seven years
The Global Stock Picking blog: successes and failures investing in HK small-caps
Michael Schuman on how China tried to build an EV industry from scratch
Not Boring Substack on fast-growing Chinese e-commerce company Shein, which it calls “the TikTok of e-commerce”
An update on the current trends in the semiconductor foundry market
A Bloomberg report on how the world economy is suddenly running low on practically everything.
A review of Sam Cooper’s new book Wilful Blindness on mainland Chinese crime syndicates using Vancouver casinos to launder money
Erin Cook wrote a short summary of Singapore’s new COVID-19 measures
An overview of the Indonesian tech giant GoTo, which was formed as a merger between Gojek and Tokopedia ($)
Nikkei describing how taxes are being raised across Southeast Asia to pay for COVID-19 related spending ($)
Podcasts and videos
Joel Greenblatt discussing basic investing theories (1:03 hours)
David Rosenberg: “Inflation will be transitory” (1:20 hours)
BBC Radio on China’s space ambitions (49 mins)
The Economist Radio discussing July’s Tokyo Olympics (19 mins)
FT’s Gideon Rachman discusses Myanmar after the coup (22 mins)
GaveKal Research discussing Asia’s macro drivers (8 mins)
Geopolitics expert Peter Zeihan interviewed by Grant Williams ($) (full version: 1:12 hours)
Chart of the week – Japan’s vaccination rate is improving rapidly
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