Hong Kong stocks led losses as coronavirus cases surged in China; Asian markets are mixed

Hong Kong shares listed JD.com It was trading down more than 5% in the afternoon after the company confirmed a pay cut for its senior management team.

The Chinese e-commerce giant has confirmed that it will cut cash salaries for its senior management team by up to 20%, starting from January next year.

The company added that it will pay the social security fees of Depon Logistics employees and set up a housing fund.

“The employee benefits improvement plan is currently being upgraded, with a focus on frontline employees,” the company told CNBC.

– Iris Wang

Investing in US-listed Chinese companies is tantamount to playing “fantasy football” as US regulators continue their scrutiny of the companies, according to one asset management firm.

Recent reports by the U.S. Public Accounting Oversight Board that it has obtained “good access” to required information have yet to be confirmed, said Kyle Bass, founder and chief information officer at Hayman Capital Management, and reaffirmed the financial risks faced by Chinese corporate investors. listed in the United States. .

“They own shares that have a claim to a Cayman Islands company that doesn’t have voting rights, and doesn’t have access to assets in bankruptcy,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” when asked if Chinese stocks are in the US. It was “investable”.

Offshore listed Chinese companies, such as Alibaba and JD.com, use a variable interest entity structure, in which an offshore entity is set up, bypassing China’s restrictions on foreign investment and preventing US equity investors from obtaining majority voting rights.

A company listed in the United States is usually a holding company established outside of both the United States and China, and may not own shares in a company based in China.

“Investors are playing fantasy football with Chinese companies because they really don’t own anything,” he said.

– Jihe Lee

Indonesia’s GoTo group reported a higher nine-month cumulative loss than the same period a year ago, though quarterly losses shrank as costs were cut.

Losses between January and September amounted to 20.32 trillion rupees ($1.29 billion), nearly double the 11.58 trillion rupees loss reported a year earlier.

Its share price fell 6% on Tuesday morning in Jakarta, marking a 48% drop in the share price since its listing in April this year.

The company announced last Friday job cuts as part of broader plans to cut costs, which it expects to reverse later in 2023.

– Sheila Chiang

One of the kingmakers in the Malaysian election, Gabungan Party Sarawak, a national political coalition based in Sarawak in eastern Malaysia, said it supports the Perikatan National Coalition to form a government and will not work with Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan.

Malaysia’s king has asked the major coalitions to submit their prime ministerial candidates by 2pm local time, after Saturday’s election was inconclusive.

“We’ve always been told [sic] GPS Secretary General Alexandre Nanta Lingye told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that the DAP is a progressive party made up of Pakatan.

“The last few days during the elections, they have been attacking us very hard. So it is difficult…to form a government, to be very objective in that sense.”

In exchange for GPS support, Linggi said he would like the government to give party members positions in ministries of interest to them, such as rural development and commodities.

—Su Lin Tan

Once upon a time dear Wall Street, Amazon It lost some of its luster this year. The e-commerce giant’s stock is down more than 40%, far underperforming Standard & Poor’s 500which fell by about 15% in the same period.

Is it time for investors to pile up again? Two market professionals faced off on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” Thursday to make an argument for and against buying the stock.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Xavier Ong

A survey by Refinitiv showed that Baidu is expected to see a slight decline in revenue in the third quarter of 2022.

The company is expected to see revenue drop 0.05% to 31.904 billion yuan ($4.46 billion) in the July-September period, down from 31.92 billion yuan from the same period last year.

Meanwhile, Tiktok rival Kuaishou is expected to see revenue grow 10.2% for the third quarter to 22.58 billion yuan, according to a separate survey on Refinitiv — which would be the slowest pace of annual growth since the company began reporting earnings.

Hong Kong shares listed quicho fell 4.1% before earnings, while Baidu The shares fell 0.44% in the morning session.

– Jihe Lee

Mike Wilson, chief US equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, said he expects a “very sharp drop in inflation,” and predicts when this could happen.

But he said there are two areas of exception, where inflation could be “more persistent”.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Wizen tan

Oil prices were little changed in the Asian morning after hitting their lowest levels since January on Monday.

American Crude It was partially higher at $80.08 a barrel, after touching $75.08 in Monday’s session.

Brent crude It rose slightly to $87.52 per barrel. It reached $82.31 in the previous session.

Oil futures fell briefly on Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported that OPEC+ is considering increasing supply by 500,000 barrels per day. Saudi Arabia later disputed this report.

– Abigail

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said cryptocurrency exchange FTX was not on its investor alert list because it was not “actively attracting users in Singapore” unlike rival Binance.

MAS said there is a “clear distinction” between FTX and Binance in terms of targeting local users, according to a statement released Monday afternoon.

“Binance has in fact gone so far as to offer listings in Singapore dollars and accept Singapore-specific payment methods such as PayNow and PayLah,” it said in the statement, adding that it received numerous complaints about Binance between January and August last year.

MAS continued to stress the risks investors face when trading digital assets.

“The most important lesson from the FTX debacle is that dealing in any cryptocurrency, on any platform, is dangerous,” she said, adding that even licensed cryptocurrency exchanges in Singapore would only be regulated to address money laundering risks, not to provide protection. for investors.

“As MAS has repeatedly stated, there is no protection for customers who deal in cryptocurrencies. They can lose all their money,” she said.

– Jihe Lee

Stocks fell on Monday in a choppy trading session to kick off the short holiday week.

The S&P 500 fell 0.39% to 3949.94 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.09% to end the day at 11024.51. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 45.41 points, or 0.13%, to 33,700.28, although losses on the index were mitigated by a jump in Disney which rose more than 6%.

Disney jumped in after the company announced that former CEO Bob Iger would replace Bob Chapek.

– Carmen Renick