The news is taken from CNEVPost. BYD's new plant in central Chinese city Zhengzhou goes into operation April 7, 2023 14:50 GMT+8 Currently in production is the first phase of BYD's Zhengzhou base, with a planned annual capacity of 400,000 vehicles. BYD chairman calls on China to extend NEV tax exemption until 2025 April 3, 2023 17:04 GMT+8 The world economy is currently in a difficult period of complexity and change, and dealing with risks and challenges requires firm confidence and stable expectations, Wang said. BYD Mar sales breakdown: Qin 40,850, Song 40,510 April 2, 2023 20:08 GMT+8 The Qin family of models sold a record 40,850 units in March, surpassing the Song family's 40,510 units to become the best-selling BYD model for the month. BYD starts warming up for mini car Seag

The US economy has reported a stellar Q4. Here are some of the highlights: Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced, increased at a 3.3% annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to data adjusted seasonally and for inflation.That compared with the Wall Street consensus estimate for a gain of 2% in the final three months of the year. The third quarter grew at a 4.9% pace. The US White House has an article about the economy. Here is an extract: Is the American economy represented by the S&P500 index? S&P500 - is it about the USA economy or more? Factset has released a good article dated 31 Oct 2023 (pertaining to Q3 2023 concerning S&P500). 02-s&p-500-revenue-growth-year-over-year-q3-2023 S&P500 companies have an averag

Public Holidays No public holidays for Hong Kong, Singapore, the US & China in the coming week. Economic Calendar (14Aug2023) Economic Calendar for the week starting 14 Aug 2023 Notable Highlights Retail data - Core retail sales and retail sales data will be announced this week. This reflects consumption in the USA. Building Permits. This will shed some light pertaining to real estate. Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index. From investing > The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Index rates the relative level of general business conditions in Philadelphia. A level above zero on the index indicates improving conditions; below indicates worsening conditions. The data is compiled from a survey of about 250 manufacturers in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve district. Jobless cla

I have exited Apple after holding on to the stock for a few years (before Covid). Some of my reasons: Lacking innovation. While Apple offers great products, the quality of its competition is catching up. Seeing the good gross margins, I am not sure I am willing to pay such a premium to leave the Android ecosystem. The above news article mentioned that Apple Car could still be in reality in a few years. The above is an aged news article from 2022 that spoke about the team issue managing Apple Car. Lost the core team for Apple Car. We are waiting for the official word from Apple on this matter. Apple M2 GPU performance From PCMag article: M2 packs 25% higher graphics performance than the M1 when using the same amount of power. At maximum power, the advertised performance boost clim

Public Holidays No public holidays for Hong Kong, Singapore the US & China in the coming week. Economic Calendar (24Jul2023) Economic Calendar for the week starting 24 Jul 2023 Notable Highlights Fed interest rate decision should be the most watched macro news for the coming week. With the Fed predicting another 2 more interest rate hikes, it is speculated that the market is expecting a rate hike of 25bps. How will the market respond to this? The tone of the speech during the announcement may be a key reference. If the tone is largely hawkish, the market may not respond kindly to this. PCE - This is the Fed’s preferred indicator coming to inflation and the forecast (MoM) is a persistent 0.2% growth. This is an important data point as the Fed uses this as an important reference fo

My investing muse - oil, Apple & Huawei Oil and the OPEC+ impact From Y Chart: US Retail Gas Price is at a current level of 3.925, down from 3.931 last week and down from 3.938 one year ago. This is a change of -0.15% from last week and -0.33% from one year ago.The US Retail Gas Price is the average price that retail consumers pay per gallon, for all grades and formulations. Retail gas prices are important to view in regards to how the energy industry is performing. Additionally, retail gas prices can give a good overview of how much discretionary income consumers might have to spend. Since Jan 2023, US retail gas prices are on an uptrend. This sounds like “inflation inbound”. From the Crude oil price chart, we see a recent surge in oil prices as OPEC+ declared production cuts. I

Public Holidays Nil Economic Calendar (17 Apr 2023) This was the update from the week ending 14 Apr 2023: The biggest good news is CPI dropped YoY from 6.0% previous month to 5.0% (much lesser than the 5.2% estimate) PPI came out to be -0.5% compared to 0.1%. This is the inflation that hits producers first (before being passed downstream to the consumers seen in CPI). This implies that there is a chance for some components of CPI to be lowered in the coming update. Crude Oil Inventories ended with an excess of 0.597M compared to an expected drawdown of 0.583M. This implies that the demand looks to be weaker than expected. Initial Jobless Claims came out higher (239K compared to the expected 232K). There is more unemployment than expected. Retail Sales came out to be more disappointing t

Public Holidays This is a short week with Singapore, the USA, and Hong Kong celebrating Good Friday on 29 March 2024. Here is wishing all Christians a blessed Good Friday. The Significance of Good Friday and Easter in Christian Tradition Economic Calendar (25 Mar 2024) Notable Highlights Core PCE would be the most watched macro data for the coming week. This is the main indicator news by the Federal Reserve to understand inflation in the economy. Should the PCE index outcome be unexpected, this should lead to some volatility in the market. New home sales is a good reference pertaining to the real estate industry. CB Consumer Confidence and durable good orders will share insight into the sentiments of consumers in the US economy. Chicago PMI will be a good indicator of the manufacturing

I have been investing in Aliaba (BABA) for the last few years and thus, I could write with investor bias. BABA’s recent performance <Provided by Google Bard AI> Alibaba's revenue, net income, free cash flow, retained earnings, assets, and liabilities have all grown significantly over the past few years. In 2022, Alibaba's revenue grew by 10% to $247.8 billion. Net income grew by 2% to $35.9 billion. Free cash flow grew by 16% to $7.5 billion. Retained earnings grew by 18% to $132.3 billion. Assets grew by 14% to $844.5 billion. Liabilities grew by 13% to $371.3 billion. This growth is due to a number of factors, including the continued expansion of Alibaba's e-commerce business, the growth of its cloud computing business, and the expansion of its international business. Alibaba's gr

Public Holidays US celebrates 4th July 2023 (Independence Day) ie Tuesday. On Monday, there is early closure at 13:00 hours. No public holidays for Hong Kong, Singapore & China Economic Calendar (03Jul2023) Economic Calendar for the week starting 03 July 2023 Notable Highlights FOMC meeting minutes - This will set the tone for the coming rate hikes/pivot/pause by the Fed as more details of the recent meetings will be revealed. PMI - there are several important PMI data to be announced in the coming week namely, ISM Manufacturing PMI, Services PMI and ISM non-Manufacturing PMI. A higher-than-expected PMI is good news for the market and likewise, it is bearish when vice versa. Jobs-related data like ADP nonfarm employment change, JOLTs Job openings, average Hourly earnings & Nonfar

Public Holidays No public holidays for Hong Kong, Singapore the US & China Economic Calendar (10Jul2023) Notable Highlights CPI - will be the most watched economic news of the coming week as this plays an important consideration in the Fed’s coming interest rate hikes decision. PPI - this speaks of inflation that hits the producers first before it reaches the wider market. If this ticks upwards, this can be read as more inflation to be passed on to the consumers in the coming weeks. Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims will be announced on Thursday. We will also get an update on the unemployment rate. This would form important data points for the Fed to decide on the next interest rate adjustment. Crude Oil Inventories can be seen as forward indicators of market demand and cons

My investing muse - CPI, bank and AI The earnings of the Big 3 banks (JP Morgan, Citibank & Wells Fargo) came out to be better than expected. It gave a strong start to the earnings season. However, the Big 3 banks have benefited as consumers moved their deposits out of smaller/regional banks. Most of these have ended up with the Big 4 (including Bank of America). The banking crisis is yet over. With the latest interest rate hike, the banking sector would have incurred more unrealized losses to their long-term assets like bonds and treasuries. Though these could be held on till maturity but these would also be one of the first assets to be liquidated in event of a bank run. CPI came out to be much lesser than anticipated. The market breathed a sigh of relief with YoY falling from 6.0% l

Public Holidays Nil for Singapore, Hong Kong, China & USA Economic Calendar (05Jun2023) Economic Calendar for the week starting 05Jun2023 Notable Highlights Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims will be announced on Thursday. This would form important data points for the Fed to decide on the next interest rate adjustment. PMI updates from the US - This reflects the US domestic manufacturing outlook and can be a good reference for the market outlook. For this week, the PMI is for services from May 2023. Crude Oil Inventories can be seen as forward indicators of market demand and consumption. If the trend of excess inventories continues, this implies demand erosion that can lead to reduced production & weakening consumer spending. The last crude oil saw a bigger drawdown than expe

Public Holidays There are no public holidays in the coming week for Hong Kong, China, the USA & Singapore. Economic Calendar (16Oct2023) Economic Calendar for the week of 16 Oct 2023 Notable Highlights Retail Sales. Core retail sales & retail sales data will be released. This will be a good reference on domestic consumption in the USA. China’s GDP will be released. This can be a good indication for global consumption. Building Permits and Existing Home Sales will be released in the coming week. These will be a good reference for the real estate in the USA. There were concerns that a real estate bubble. The data will help to give better insights for this sector. Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index will allow us some insights on the manufacturing sector in the USA. Jobless claims.

My investing muse - UAW strike, inflation, interest rate & Ukraine Inflation and interest rate Most eyes will be fixed on the Fed with their coming interest rate decision. Most are expecting the hike rate to pause with a probable one more rate hike by the end of the year. The latest CPI figure may have matched expectations but there was an increase of 0.6% Month on Month (MoM). This implies that things are still getting more expensive over time. With OPEC+ reducing their daily oil production by 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd), the oil price has crossed the USD$90 mark recently. This should be sustained till the end of the year. Strikes UAW strike has taken place with about 13,000 union workers involved. The strike is affecting the automakers GM, Ford and Stellantis. While the demands