Most Read: LG Chem Ltd, NTT (Nippon Telegraph & Telephone), Hong Kong Hang Seng Index, GoTo, Sunac Services Holdings, SICC, China Zhenhua (Group) Science & Tech, Ping An Insurance (H), LG Energy Solution, Keppel Corp and more

• Despite the WATCH list’s confusion, LG Energy Solution replaced LG Chem. In addition, Solactive excluded Iljin Materials, evidently due to its float-adjusted market cap size.
• There are some somewhat elusive additions. The most prominent example is Japan Steel Works, which replaced LG Chem in the updated WATCH list at the last minute.
• There was confusion about LG Chem’s deletion until the last minute, so, likely, the market has not sufficiently reflected this rebalancing factor in LG Energy/LG Chem’s LONG/SHORT.

• The TOPIX October FFW rebalance is Friday at the close. 
• It is still ¥2trln+ to buy and ¥2trln+ to sell. And there are some big names. A spreadsheet is attached with all the flows. 
• Surprisingly, the top 40 Z-scores on each side have traded in a VERY tight range for the 6 weeks prior to the announcement and the two weeks post. Very weird.

In 1992, a TV series aired in Hong Kong on TVB called The Greed of Man. The series told the three-plus-decade story of Ting Hai, an “uneducated and pathologically self-righteous brute” (played by Canto pop singer and actor Adam Cheng (born 1947)) and Fong Chun-sun, “an honest, cultured and refined leader of the Asian Stock Exchange” (played by Damian Lau) who were childhood friends, split, and saw Ting kill Fong over a girl.

Ting Hai fled to Taiwan, was brutish again, spent a decade-plus in prison there. One of Ting Hai’s sons pursues a Fong daughter, is rebuffed, the son turns violent. Eventually the three Fong daughters are killed, and Fong’s only son (played by Sean Lau) flees to Taiwan and makes it rich through indirect gambling on stocks. In Hong Kong, the Tings have made it rich by being short in the 1987 crash. Ting has come back to Hong Kong, is charged with murder, then buys himself out of a sentence. Fong comes back to Hong Kong, and they duke it out in the stock market in true good guys vs bad guys epic knock-down drag-out drama. Ting and his sons are backed by the triads. Fong is backed by a few HK tycoons. Eventually, Ting is wiped out.

He responds by throwing his four sons off the top of the stock exchange building and following himself. Only Ting survives, now billions in debt, and spends the rest of his life in prison. 

The first episode of the show actually started with that final scene of Ting hurling his sons off the building. TVB got so many calls from disturbed viewers they altered the show, and moved its time slot. Apparently, the re-issues and re-airings of the show all show edited versions. The edited version was re-released on TV in 2015 and was well-received in HK by a younger generation. 

Most importantly to this insight however, is that when the series started in 1992, the Hang Seng Index fell 1200 points in one month – that was almost 20% at the time. It started falling part way through the series, then the index fell 1,000 points (16+%) in four days after the gruesome ending.

There were so many complaints about the ending that TVB revised the video release and subsequent re-releases.

Two years later, another TVB drama series starring Adam Cheng called ‘Instinct‘ was aired starting in November 1994. The index started falling a day or two before, after what had been an ugly year-to-date, and fell 20% in 7 weeks while the series aired.

1996 saw two series starring Adam Cheng air on TVB.

Cold Blood Warm Heart – a romantic crime thriller series of 65 episodes aired its first episode on 5 February and ended its run on 3 May. The market fell 700+ points or 6% in the period. 

In early September 1996, Adam Cheng starred in another TVB series called Once Upon A Time In Shanghai (a remake of a 1980s series called The Bund), which ran from 2 September through 25 October 1996. The Hang Seng Index fell sharply the next day, and this was blamed on the Ting Hai Effect, but the market did pretty well in the 7-week-long series.

In late 1997 he starred in a historical drama called Legend of Yung Ching for a Taiwanese production company, covering a period in the mid 18th century of the Kangxi Emperor, the Yongzheng Emperor (Adam Cheng’s role), and the Qianlong Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. Apparently, the market dropped the day it aired. 

In June 1999, he starred in a four-part series called Lord of Imprisonment (may have been a Taiwanese series) which started apparently late in the month. That apparently started a fall of 6+% in the Hang Seng Index.

In 2000, a series called Divine Retribution aired on ATV. It was a sequel to Greed of Man, and was originally called Greed of Man 2000 and actually took place in the near future, not the recent past as had been the case for the original series. It ran from 11 September through 3 November 2000. The Hang Seng Index fell 10% in 6 weeks before rallying in the last two days of the series.

In March 2004 – from 8 March through 24 April 2004 – a historical drama of 37 episodes (more for the international version) starring Adam Cheng called Blade Heart aired on TVB. The opening theme song was performed by Adam Cheng.

You guessed it. The Hang Seng was down more than 10% in 7 weeks.

Later that year, he was in The Conqueror’s Story from 25 October through 4 December – also on TVB. The market fell nearly 200 points the day the series started. 

Adam Cheng also starred in a period costume drama called The Prince’s Shadow from 14 March through 18 April 2005. The market fell on the first day, regained most of its loss, but that was the high price of the series. The market fell over the period of the series.

In 2007, Adam Cheng played a real estate CEO in a TV drama set in contemporary China. The series, named Return Home ran for 33 episodes starting 15 July 2007.

In 2009 he did a TVB series on Hong Kong TV, titled The King of Snooker. It was 20 episodes airing on TVB from 30 March 2009 through 24 April 2009. On the first day, the market fell 600+ points or 4.7% on the day. He had also filmed a series in 2008 called The Book and The Sword – a 40-episode period drama aired in China starting 20 March 2009. The HK market fell 2.3% that day.

On 21 May 2012, a 30-episode psychological thriller titled Master of Play starred Adam Cheng. It ran on TVB for 30 episodes through 29 June 2012. The market fell 10% in the 10 days running up to the launch of the new series.

A year later, the period drama movie Saving General Yang was released in Beijing on 4 April 2013 and the next day, the Hang Seng was down 610 points (-2.7%).

In April 2015, the original 1992 drama The Greed of Man which made the Ting Hai Effect was rerun. The first day of the re-run (20 April) the market fell 2% or 558 points. 

He was interviewed in the South China Morning Post 9 days later and the next morning the article came out (30 April). He said he wasn’t to blame for the stock market’s falls when his shows aired. 

The market fell five days straight. 

In classic fashion, there was a new series out in 2018 called Ever Night. It saw advertising the two weeks before and the Hang Seng fell about 1,000 points in the two weeks before the release. People joked days before that the market fall was due to the new show.

The show was popular in China, so the 60-episode Season 1 started in October 2018 was followed by a 43-episode Season 2 staring 13 January 2020 and running for 3 months and a week. The market fell 25% from the start of Season 2 before rebounding. 

Which brings us to the present day…

Earlier this month, the sequel to The Greed Of Man was released for streaming on Disney+. The market, which had rebounded that day, fell for the next 6 days. 

And today, 25 October, TVB starts re-runs of the 1988 series Behind Silk Curtains starring Adam Cheng, where he plays the role of the chairman of a bank, and drives a businessman’s company to bankruptcy so he can take it over.

Notes:

• This is a fun thing. But it appears to be taken somewhat seriously. It ALWAYS comes up. 
• Not EVERY movie or tv series appearance causes bad results. Bar Bender aired starting on 3 April 2006 on TVB Jade, and the market was up that day, fell back a little in the following days, but not seriously, and then rose 8% by 26 April. 
• However, enough do that it retains its name decades later. 

Sources:

• CLSA put out a Hong Kong Market Outlook piece in April 2004 about The Adam Cheng Effect. That is probably the first I heard of it. 
• The Ting Hai Effect wikipedia page is a place to start. 
• There was an article in Chinese on www.chinanews.com (original source: http://big5.chinanews.com.cn:89/gate/big5/www.chinanews.com/yl/ypkb/news/2009/04-02/1629867.shtml) in April 2009 just after the King of Snooker series started which talked about the Tin Hai Effect. It is likely the source of some of the later articles in English because one of the dates is wrong and most later English sources copy that date.
• Wikipedia has a list of most of the TVB series by year of production. 
• IMDB has a list of most of his appearances. Wikipedia does too.

• GoTo (GOTO IJ) listed on 11 April and closed at its lowest point since listing yesterday. The lock-up on pre-IPO shareholders expires on 30 November.
• GoTo (GOTO IJ) has confirmed that it is working with pre-IPO shareholders to explore a coordinated secondary offering.
• The lock-up expiry will result in a lot of shares hitting the market in December. The increased float could result in MSCI/FTSE inclusion early next year.

• With investors chucking in the towel and the HSI touching a thirteen-year low, it’s time for some old school perspective.
• This insight looks at Benjamin Graham’s Net Nets, (current assets less current liabilities), then subtract any debt not included in current liabilities. More simply, current assets less total liabilities.
• Graham would conclude these stocks are priced for liquidation. Stocks discussed include Sinopec Engineering (2386 HK), PC Partner (1263 HK), Linklogis (9959 HK), Antengene (6996 HK) and property service companies.

• With the review period nearly complete, there could be 4 changes using a 12-month minimum listing history, and 5 changes using a 6-month minimum listing history.
• The market cap of potential adds using a 6-month minimum listing history is higher and there is a higher probability of a 6-month minimum listing history being used.
• The potential adds have outperformed the potential deletes and the index. Similar to the last few rebalances, we could see the adds outperform post the end of the review period.

• Near the end of the review period, we see 16 potential changes to the CSI 300 Index at the December rebalance. There are other stocks very close to the cutoffs.
• We estimate a one-way turnover of 3.04% at the December rebalance leading to a one-way trade of CNY 8.4bn.
• The potential adds have outperformed the potential deletes, though the gap has narrowed in the last few weeks. We’d position for outperformance post the end of the review period.

• The selloff in the broader market has led to the A/H premium on PingAn blowing out to levels not seen in the last few years and outpacing the HSASP Index.
• At a 24% premium, the risk/reward for a long Ping An Insurance (H) (2318 HK) / short Ping An Insurance Group (601318 CH) trade has never been better.
• The shift from A-shares to H-shares is already taking place – Southbound Stock Connect holdings have been increasing while the Northbound Stock Connect holdings have been decreasing.

• In this insight, we discuss a pair trade between LG Chem Ltd (051910 KS) (go long) and LG Energy Solution (373220 KS) (go short). 
• LG Chem’s shares are trading at nearly 66% discount to its NAV which we believe to be excessive. 
• Another major factor that could negatively impact LGES’ shares in the next several months is the end of the lock-up period for the company’s ESOA shares in about three months. 

• In this insight, we take a look at the potential index changes for the FTSE Straits Times Index (STI) (STI INDEX) between now and the March 2023 index review.
• Keppel DC REIT (KDCREIT SP) is currently the lowest ranked index constituent and could get kicked out when Sembcorp Marine (SMM SP) gets added.
• Olam Group (OLG SP) and SATS (SATS SP) are the next highest ranked potential ADD and DEL respectively and could be involved in index changes if their prices move sharply.