In today’s briefing:
- Ohayo Japan | Lacklustre; Buffett Talks up Trading Companies
- US Banks – Weekly C&I Loan Growth Remains Negative, Total Loan Growth Still Only Barely Positive
- Europe’s Magnificent Eleven
- [Blue Lotus Daily]:LI/XPEV/NIO/1211 HK/BEKE/ZLAB
- [Blue Lotus Daily – TMT Update]: 700 HK/1810 HK/BIDU/JD/BABA/PDD/1024 HK/3690 HK/WB/4689JP/4755JP
- Retail Media in Japan: More Revenue for Retailers, More Sales for Brands
- Weekly Sustainable Investing Surveyor – Week Ended February 23, 2024
- Postcard from Mandya | Cruising Around the Sugar City in a BYD
Ohayo Japan | Lacklustre; Buffett Talks up Trading Companies
- The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed Tuesday with slight gains ahead of key inflation data.
- Japanese trading houses soared to record highs following Warren Buffett’s bullish remarks, robust earnings, and share buyback plans
- Japan core consumer price index, excluding fresh food, rose by 2% year-on-year, down from December’s 2.3% increase
US Banks – Weekly C&I Loan Growth Remains Negative, Total Loan Growth Still Only Barely Positive
- Large US bank weekly data shows a fragile economy still with negative 1.4% C&I loan growth YoY in the most recent week’s data
- Total loans for large US banks are up only 0.5% YoY in the most recent week which is down from 0.7% to 1.3% just 4-5 months ago
- Large time deposit growth is decelerating but remains very high at 84% YoY in the most recent week’s data, suggesting still core income pressure
Europe’s Magnificent Eleven
- I was today-years-old when I learned that Europe has its own version of the Magnificent 7; the basket of giga-cap US tech companies comprised of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla.
- The GRANOLAS Dubbed the “Granolas” by Goldman Sachs in 2020, this basket was chosen because it echoed themes present amongst the Mag 7 (back then it was just “FAAMG”) .
Namely, they were market leaders in the STOXX 600 Europe Index, they had grown to become an increasingly larger share of the market, and their earnings had far outpaced the broader index.
[Blue Lotus Daily]:LI/XPEV/NIO/1211 HK/BEKE/ZLAB
- LI/XPEV/NIO/1211 HK: Sales of strong EV brands held up better during CNY, Li and Tesla led and AITO and BYD followed (+)
- BEKE : ByteDance suspend self-operating home decoration business( + )
- ZLAB:Bristol-Myers Squibb （BMS） outsources Opdivo sales in ten southwestern provinces to Zai Lab, a long-term positive but with many prerequisites (+)
[Blue Lotus Daily – TMT Update]: 700 HK/1810 HK/BIDU/JD/BABA/PDD/1024 HK/3690 HK/WB/4689JP/4755JP
- 1810 HK/BIDU: Google’s Gemma is an important move for client-side AI (+)
- 3690 HK: Local news said Douyin has deemphasized take out business (+)
- PDD/4689 JP/AMZN/4385 JP/4755 JP: Data indicates that Temu is particularly popular in Japan (+/~/-/-/-)
Retail Media in Japan: More Revenue for Retailers, More Sales for Brands
- The growth in retail media (brand advertising delivered in stores based on detailed customer data) continues to be one of the big trends in 2024.
- Large retailers are keen to add this new revenue stream – and lots of brands want to advertise with them – and companies like Rakuten are offering this service directly.
- For many retailers, they still need help from experts in advertising and data analysis to make it work, providing an opportunity for Hakuhodo among others.
Weekly Sustainable Investing Surveyor – Week Ended February 23, 2024
- The WTR Sustainable Index was down by 0.5% W/W versus the S&P 500 Index (up 1.7%), the Russell 2000 Index (down 0.8%), and the Nasdaq Index (up 1.4%).
- Energy Technology (12.7% of the index) was down by 10.5%, while Industrial Climate and Ag Technology (55.2% of the index) was up by 2.0%, ClimateTech Mining was down 6.8%, and Advanced Transportation Solutions was down 2.2%.
- Top 10 Performers: EFOI, IPWR, CYDVF, ROOF, PGTK, CLIR, LITM, FIX, LOOP, RE
Postcard from Mandya | Cruising Around the Sugar City in a BYD
- With the “Postcard” series, our objective is to bring to our readers on-ground insights based on interactions across key channels located in tier 2 and tier 3 locations.
- For this Postcard, we traveled to Mandya, a city in the southern state of Karnataka, also known as the ‘Sugar City,’ on a rented E6 by BYD (1211 HK).
- Sectors in focus include Consumer Finance, Mortgage Lenders, and Retailers.
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