In today’s briefing:
- Good Morning Japan |US Bank Turmoil Spur Safe Haven Bid; NUGGET:Japan Wage Hikes – Something Special
- Intel’s Dividend Cut Debacle
- Semiconductors: 2022 Review & 2023 Outlook
- Shroom Shmooz: Thoughts on Pathways to More Robust Payor Coverage for PAT
- SPAC Talk: The Deal or Bust Cycle Set to Continue
- China/Asia TMT Update(Mar.14): PDD/CPNG/BILI/ZTO – Logistics Companies Increased Prices;
Good Morning Japan |US Bank Turmoil Spur Safe Haven Bid; NUGGET:Japan Wage Hikes – Something Special
- OVERSEAS. Shares of US regional banks crash; Flight to safe haven assets as US2Yr yield crash; Also, strong Yen bid; Nomura expects Fed to CUT next (now that’s original).
- JAPAN. NKY Futs -2.2% vs Cash; USDJPY strengthens to 133.21; Masatoshi Ito – founder of Ito-Yokado dies at 98; Nidec -Leadership Transition take shape; Japan Post Bank priced; Komatsu upgrade
- NUGGET. JAL EXCEEDS union demands with wage settlement. Inflation may act as the slayer of inefficient companies as weaker companies will just not be able to keep up.
Intel’s Dividend Cut Debacle
- Intel’s CFO had reiterated his support for maintaining the dividend on multiple occasions since December 2022, most recently at the latest earnings call on January 26 last.
- On February 22, Intel issued a press release announcing a 66% dividend cut.
- What caused Intel to change their position on the dividend over the course of three weeks last month?
Semiconductors: 2022 Review & 2023 Outlook
- 2022 was characterised by a historically strong H1 followed by a far weaker H2
- The current downturn is impacting memory, PC and smartphone shipments the hardest
- 2023 is shaping up to be the reverse of 2022, i.e. historically weak H1 with recovery in H2
Shroom Shmooz: Thoughts on Pathways to More Robust Payor Coverage for PAT
- Affordability is an important condition for broad-based accessibility to psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT), both now (ketamine) and in the future (MDMA, psilocybin, et al.).
- This makes the evolution of payor coverage as critical a part of the development of PAT as the clinical trial outcomes and the progression toward a more accommodative regulatory environment.
- Current payor coverage for ketamine-assisted therapy (KAT) is inconsistent at best.
SPAC Talk: The Deal or Bust Cycle Set to Continue
- The liquidations count continues to rise. While the SPAC IPO market appears to have gone back into its slumber with no pricings to report yet in March, the main theme of the SPAC market continues to be liquidations, as it has been particularly since October 2022.
- So far in March, 26 SPACs are slated to liquidate their trusts (of which half have already been liquidated), which makes it the second-highest monthly total ever, only behind the excise tax panic-stricken December 2022 rush of 89 liquidations.
- Based on the current count for March, which we suspect will not be the final number, $8.5 billion will be returned to Class A shareholders.
China/Asia TMT Update(Mar.14): PDD/CPNG/BILI/ZTO – Logistics Companies Increased Prices;
- PDD: Temu launches in Australia and New Zealand (+); CPNG: Coupang withdraws from delivery service in Japan (+)
- ZTO/PDD: Logistics companies increased parcel prices in Yiwu City (+/-)
- BILI:BILI hold content creator seminar to discuss video metrics (+)
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