Daily Brief Financials: S&P 500 INDEX, Thai Life Insurance, Aave, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert Sa, Soccer VS, Draper Esprit, Binance Coin and more

• Cycle: May/June a more negative cycle. Late April negative/ turn phase is unfolding with a squeeze surprise (2-3 session swing turns).  Sell SPX 4,200 top zone. 4,100 break will open up selling pressure. 
• RTY bear reversal at 1,790 resistance on track and the underperform favored US short.
• Euro wedge break would pick up slack as the USD/JPY rise stalls at resistance. Asian equity short, long updated levels.

• Two thirds of the way through the review period, we forecast two changes for the Stock Exchange of Thailand SET 50 Index (SET50 INDEX) at the June rebalance.
• Thai Life Insurance (TLI TB) and WHA Corp Pcl (WHA TB) could replace Jaymart PCL (JMART TB) and Ngern Tid Lor (TIDLOR TB).
• JMT Network Services (JMT TB) is a very close delete on market cap, while Intouch Holdings (INTUCH TB) is a close delete on liquidity. Multiple possibilities here.

• In the latest inning of the crypto credit crisis, real world banks like Silvergate was shuttered making the on-and-off ramp of crypto to fiat more challenging.
• Crypto lenders have already been decimated in the centralised lending space while DeFi lenders seem to trudge along – but are they the bastions of success? 
• We analyse what the current landscape means for the crypto lending industry and have a regrettable conclusion.

• Discounts to NAV of covered holdcos have generally tightened during April. Discounts to NAV: C.F.Alba, 51.3%; GBL, 32.3%; Heineken Holding, 16.4%; Industrivärden C, 7.7%; Investor B, 9.5%; Porsche Automobile Holding, 49.7%. 
• The spread of Rio Tinto DLC tightened to 16.8%. Rio Tinto is a candidate for an Australian top hat structure.
• Recommended trades: Heineken Holding, Investor AB (long Investor B/short main holdings) and Rio DLC.

• My prediction is the news cycle in crypto heats up over the next 6 months as bigger and bigger brands start experimenting or building solid propositions using this nascent technology.

• Almost every startup in the space I’ve spoken to over the last 6-9 months is looking to raise capital.

• And even though deal count as a metric has stabilised and actually seen an increase in Q2 2023, numbers still aren’t as strong.

Molten Ventures released its FY23 trading update (to end-March 2023), with its NAV per share down c 17% in FY23 to c 775p. That said, it posted only a minor 2% decline in its gross portfolio fair value in H223 (excluding foreign exchange impact), which indicates some stabilisation after the 17% decline in H123. Molten’s ‘Core’ portfolio (c 62% of total portfolio) saw a robust 40% value-weighted revenue growth in the calendar year to end-December 2022 (though below the expected 60-65%, partly due to greater focus on cash preservation). The company expects continued high top-line growth of its ‘Core’ holdings in 2023 at over 65%. Management highlighted that its ‘Core’ holdings remain well funded, with over 80% of them having a cash runway of more than 18 months.

• TUSD depegged on a number of exchanges yesterday, hitting a high of $1.20 relative to USDT on Binance.
• Binance has recently been promoting TUSD, making BTC-TUSD the only zero-fee pair on the exchange.
• This quickly made Binance BTC-TUSD one of the highest-volume pairs in all of crypto despite TUSD being relatively unknown amongst stablecoins.