Monday morning links
China April statistics, Macau junket operators, CNOOC, industrial robots
China’s economic statistics for April were weak. Retail sales fell by -11% year-on-year, youth unemployment hit 18%, and total social financing dropped by -80% month-on-month. China’s property investment for April fell by -10% year-on-year, the weakest pace in 16 years. I wonder if industrial commodities are correctly pricing in the risk of weaker construction activity in China.
Macau’s legislative assembly is drafting a new gaming law to be finalised in July. Junket operators will no longer be allowed to take in deposits or hold any gaming-related debts, making it more difficult for casinos to source clients from mainland China. And now that several Macau junket operators have been shut down, casinos may eventually become liable for the debts that those junket operators left behind.
($ = behind a paywall)
I wrote a 2022 update to my report on CNOOC, the Chinese oil & gas exploration & production company (883 HK — US$69 billion) ($)
RF Capital Management’s 1Q2022 letter with a quick note on Chinese mobile game developer Zengame (2660 HK — US$246 million)
(estimated reading time) ($ = behind a paywall)
I wrote a report about the market for industrial robots (13 mins) ($)
Short B Substack: an overview of the auto-related stocks on the ASX (6 mins)
Open Insights on the ongoing Chinese crude oil inventory builds (5 mins)
Tech-focused Hayden Capital’s 1Q2022 letter (25 mins)
Horizon Kinetics’ 1Q2022 letter discussing the 1970 parallel (15 mins)
The Market Sentiment Substack with data on typical drawdowns (7 mins)
Andrew Walker at Yet Another Value Blog says: Be greedy, not fearful (7 mins)
(listening time)
Ray Dalio & Jeremy Grantham discussing the market cycle (58 mins)
“Mr BRIC” Jim O’Neill on why he’s puzzled about Chinese policy (59 mins)
Barry Eichengreen discussing Ukraine’s future after the war (34 mins)
Louis Vincent-Gave on the dollar, stocks and precious metals (1:30 hours)
Tian Yang of Variant Perception at the Grant Williams interview (preview: 12 mins) (full episode requires subscription) ($)
Rob Subbaraman & Sonal Varma at Nomura on Asian inflation pressures and the prospects for higher rates (26 mins)
Timothy Heath at RAND Corp discussing the PLA’s capabilities (43 mins)
Author Peter Hessler on authoritarianism in Xi’s China (29 mins)
Former Elliott PM Jay Newman on EM sovereign debt, incl Argentina (47 mins)
Sajid Rahman on investing in venture capital in emerging markets (57 mins)
Allison Fisch, emerging markets portfolio manager at Pzena IM (48 mins)
Ankit Agarwal from Smartkarma on his favourite Indian stocks (39 mins)
Avner Mandelman on how to do sleuthing on new investments (1:38 hours)
Shipping expert J Mintzmyer on his bullishness for tanker stocks (43 mins)
(Largest new programs as % of the market cap; min market cap: US$200m)
Innocare Pharma (10.1%) (9969 HK — US$2.0 billion)
Peijia Medical (9.9%) (9996 HK — US$590 million)
Nexteer Automotive (9.8%) (1316 HK — US$1.5 billion)
Seiko Epson (7.6%) (6724 JP — US$6.6 billion)
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (4.5%) (8306 JP — US$75 billion)
(Largest over past 7 days; min market cap: US$200m)
DMCI Holding: US$3.2 million (DMC PM — US$2.3 billion)
Semirara Mining: US$2.6 million (SCC PM — US$2.6 billion)
Jaymart: US$1.9 million (JMART TB — US$2.2 billion)
Differ Group: US$1.1 million (6878 HK — US$1.9 billion)
Ratchtani Leasing: US$0.4 million (THANI TB — US$684 million)
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