In today’s briefing:
- Japan – Increase in Shorts on Some Interesting Stocks
- Weekly Deals Digest (06 Aug) – Toshiba, E-Guardian, ITOCHU, Allkem, Symbio, Pacific Current, MPI
- Trucker Call for End to Free Shipping Will Help Relieve Pressure on Yamato
- Maersk Q2: Raised FY23 Guidance | Beat on Earnings, Too | Takeaway: Conditions Not Disastrous
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Japan – Increase in Shorts on Some Interesting Stocks
- Nisshin Seifun Group, Oji Holdings, Nippon Shinyaku, CyberAgent Inc, NGK Insulators, Lixil Group and Sharp Corp have all underperformed the Nikkei 225 (NKY INDEX) over the last 3-4 months.
- The underperformance could lead to adjustments in global passive portfolios and liquidity events on some of the stocks.
- Short interest has started to increase and there could be more pre-positioning yet to come over the next few weeks.
Weekly Deals Digest (06 Aug) – Toshiba, E-Guardian, ITOCHU, Allkem, Symbio, Pacific Current, MPI
- A weekly summary of key developments across ECM and Event-Driven names tracked by us across Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, India and Chinese ADRs.
- ECM developments – Rakuten Securities (RAKUSEC JP), EbixCash (EBIXC IN), Lalatech Holdings Co Ltd (LALA HK) and Lianlian DigiTech (2104619D CH) IPOs.
- Event-Driven developments – E Guardian Inc (6050 JP), Itochu Techno Solutions (4739 JP), Toshiba Corp (6502 JP), Symbio Holdings (SYM AU), Metro Pacific Investments Co (MPI PM).
Trucker Call for End to Free Shipping Will Help Relieve Pressure on Yamato
- Transport industry officials want to ban ‘free shipping’, forcing customers to pay for all deliveries and even redeliveries.
- The aim is to reduce demand in time for new rules on driver overtime due to come into force next year and should relieve pressure on Yamato and others.
- There is also more collaboration to reduce costs and labour: Yamato has scrapped its small packet business entirely, passing customers on to Japan Post.
Maersk Q2: Raised FY23 Guidance | Beat on Earnings, Too | Takeaway: Conditions Not Disastrous
- On Friday container giant AP Moeller – Maersk A/S (MAERSKB DC) raised FY23 guidance, lifting the bottom of its EBITDA range & increasing target FCF from US$2bn+ to US$3bn+
- Despite beating Q2 expectations and raising FY guidance, management warned that the “normalization” of container shipping conditions is taking longer than anticipated
- Maersk’s shares traded down on the news, but the company’s statements confirm our thesis: market conditions in 2023 are not nearly as bad as expected (Maersk’s TTM ROIC 34%!)