China's head of state Xi Jinping recently held a meeting with the board members of major tech companies. The result? A sharp rise in the price of shares such as Alibaba $BABA (+5,86 %)Tencent $TCEHY (+2,81 %) and BYD $1211 (+2,45 %) ! 📈

Why is this important? Xi has sent a strong signal of support to the private sector. The message: China wants to support its economy. The Saxo APAC research team emphasizes that Xi encouraged entrepreneurs to focus on their development and to operate in accordance with the law.

Ask yourselves: do you believe that such meetings actually have a long-term impact on the stock market? Or is it just a flash in the pan? Discuss with us! 👍

With the current prices of Alibaba at EUR 121.40, Tencent at EUR 62.11 and BYD at EUR 44.66, we can see how important such political signals are for the market. What do you think of the Chinese government's strategy? 🤔

Sea Limited ($SE (-2,53 %) ) is a versatile company from Singapore that has developed a super app has built a strong ecosystem of e-commerce, gaming and FinTech. After explosive growth in recent years and a subsequent fall in the share price, many investors are asking themselves: Does Sea Ltd still have potential for a turnaround?

Overview: What does Sea Limited do?

Sea Limited is active in three core areas:

✅ Shopee (e-commerce): One of the largest e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Brazil. Competition for Alibaba (Lazada), Tokopedia and MercadoLibre.

✅ Garena (Gaming): Developer of the globally successful mobile game Free Fire. Formerly the engine of growth, now weakening.

✅ SeaMoney (FinTech): Digital financial services, including lending and payment processing, strongly integrated into Shopee.

Sea Limited pursues a vertical business model where the different divisions reinforce each other - Shopee drives SeaMoney, while Garena used to deliver high profits to fund expansions.

Competition: Who are the competitors?

🔸 Alibaba $BABA (+5,86 %)
(Lazada.) & Tokopedia - Strong e-commerce competition in Southeast Asia.

🔸 Amazon
$AMZN (-2,39 %) - A growing threat, especially in markets such as Brazil

🔸 MercadoLibre $MELI (-4,31 %) - The market leader in Latin America and a direct opponent in Brazil.

🔸 Tencent $TCEHY (+2,81 %)
& NetEase
$NTES (+2,07 %) - Strong competition in the gaming segment, especially in China.

🔸 Revolut, Grab $GRAB (+1,66 %)
& Ant Group - FinTech competitors that offer similar services.

Opportunities: Why could Sea Limited be a comeback story?

✅ E-commerce remains strong: Shopee remains the market leader in several Asian countries. Despite economic uncertainties, online retail is growing in the long term.

✅ SeaMoney as a silent winner: The FinTech segment is growing steadily and can become a new source of income for Sea Ltd through digital payment services and loans.

✅ Profitability focus: After years of aggressive growth with high losses, the company is now focusing more on cost reductions and profitability - a sign that Sea Ltd wants to operate more sustainably.

✅ Expansion in Latin America: Shopee has grown particularly strongly in Brazil. If the company can establish itself there permanently, that would be a big plus.

✅ Gaming as untapped potential: If Free Fire stabilizes or Sea Ltd develops new successful games, Garena could become a growth driver again.

Risks: What could continue to weigh on Sea Limited?

⚠️ Declining gaming sales:
Free Fire was once the biggest profit generator, but user numbers are falling. Without a new hit, Garena could continue to weaken.

⚠️ Competitive pressure in e-commerce: Alibaba, Tokopedia and Amazon are putting massive pressure on Sea Ltd in Asia and Latin America. Defending market share will be expensive.

⚠️ Regulatory risks: In Asia in particular, there are always new regulations for FinTechs and online retailers that could slow down Sea Ltd's growth.

⚠️ Macroeconomic uncertainties: Rising interest rates and weak consumer behavior could have a negative impact on business - both in e-commerce and in the lending business.

⚠️ Cost cutting vs. growth: Sea Ltd is trying to become more profitable while expanding into new markets. The balancing act between growth and cost control is not easy.

Conclusion: turnaround opportunity or value trap?

Sea Limited is still one of the most exciting technology companies in Asia. The focus on profitability is positive, but success depends heavily on whether the company can stabilize its gaming division and defend Shopee against the competition.

Those who believe in the long-term potential of the Southeast Asian market and are prepared to accept short-term volatility could find a promising turnaround in Sea Ltd could be a promising turnaround opportunity.

What do you think? Is Sea Limited on its way to a comeback or is it still a risky bet?🚀

$6758 (+1,32 %) Sony is a diversified company in consumer electronics, music and movie business, image sensors, another financial services division, etc.

But today it's all about consumer electronics, the Gaming & Network Services division accounts for 32% of sales. It's also about the Playstation games console.

The Playstation 5 sales figures total 66 million units (as of December 2024). 116 million users are registered in the Playstation Network and around 47 million users use the paid subscription (13% of revenue).

Today, however, we are talking about Playstation Studios. Gaming studios that only belong to Sony.

This means that the games are almost always only released on Playstation.

In the gaming industry, the name Playstation Studios stands for quality, at least in the PS4 era, but Sony is currently struggling with massive problems.

Money is being burned here, but really burned.

For information: AAA games cost an average of 300 million US dollars. According to a leak, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 cost 315 million.

According to the BBC, GTA 6 could cost up to two billion US dollars to develop.

In addition to the money, a lot of time is also invested, of course.

Guerilla Games, a talented studio from Amsterdam, needed the following for the game Horizon Forbidden West 2022: 300 developers, 5 years and 212 million US dollars.

By mid-April 2023, around 8.4 million units had been sold worldwide, so Sony can be satisfied, it's solid for a single platform.

Sony has disclosed the development costs of two major games as part of the court case regarding the Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft takeover, they don't actually disclose such production cost information.

Jim Ryan (pictured) succeeded Kodera as President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (Playstation) in April 2019.

In 2022, he declared that Sony wanted to launch 12 live-service titles by 2025.

What are live service games?

(Written by Ryktes on Reddit)

A live-service game is a game that has been developed with the sole purpose of keeping people playing for as long as possible, in the hope that those players will pay for microtransactions. The most common way that live services encourage engagement is by making the player feel like they're losing something if they don't return to the game regularly.

• Are there Take-Two Interactive $TTWO (-0,04 %) shareholders?

In 2016, Rockstar achieved a turnover of half a billion US dollars with GTA Online.

• Electronic Arts $EA (+1,45 %)

EA generates 73% of its estimated revenue (7.5 billion US dollars) from in-game purchases and subscriptions.

PS: Share price has just fallen by 9%, the company expects net revenue from live services to fall.

• Microsoft $MSFT (-1,57 %)

The subsidiary King Games (Candy Crush Saga) has a turnover of 20 billion US dollars.

• Sony $6758 (+1,32 %)

Bungie acquired for 3.6 billion US dollars, over 160 million US dollars in microtransaction revenue between 2017 and 2019.

Live service games can be a goldmine, but they don't have to be.

Sony, the second-largest gaming company after Tencent $TCEHY (+2,81 %) was actually missing just that. Single-player games were their thing, with games like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima or Marvel's Spiderman, XBOX was finally left behind because Microsoft overslept an entire generation.

But single-player games only bring in money with purchases, after that it stops.

But now Jim wanted to get a slice of the pie and produce a real cash cow. A huge cash cow meadow was to be created out of nothing.

Let's see what happened to these plans. Jim has since resigned, leaving his successor with a billion-dollar grave.

Two games were released during this time.

• Helldivers 2 sold over 12 million copies on Playstation 5 and PC by 05.05.2024. A real hit.
• Concord 25,000 units sold after two weeks! 25k The studio was even acquired during production. According to the sources quoted by Sacred Symbols, the production of Concord cost as much as 400 million US dollars. The studio is defending itself against these sources, but insiders are now piling on and confirming this. Sony closed the studio after two weeks... Firewalk Studio worked on the game for a total of 8 years, Sony was involved from the very beginning.

As of 01/23/2025, Sony has canceled 7 of 12 live service games.

Sony's management has wasted half the generation pursuing live-service games, only to cut almost all of them.

Bluepoint Games as an example, a developer of the Demon Souls remake.

This studio specialized in single-player and did damn well with it, gamers and press were always satisfied.

Now this studio has been given the task of developing a game with live service game elements. Bluepoint Games has no idea how this works, but thinks Okay Okay Okay if that's what the boss wants, we'll do it.

Video games are not always video games. Single-player and L-S-G are as different as apples and oranges.

Imagine Elon Musk now wants to produce cars with fuel, 12 models at once. Something like that can work, but it doesn't have to.

I didn't think it was a bad idea to produce live service games on the side.

But there were just too many.

I don't know how much the loss is, but if I had to bet, 2.1 billion US dollars.

With a net profit of 6.7 billion US dollars (2024), Sony can handle that.

However, important games will now be missing, Sony is lucky that Microsoft is no longer interested in selling consoles.

In conclusion, I have to say that it was the right move to pull the plug early on. Otherwise Sony would be burning more money.

Sources:

Gamespot:

https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/sonys-live-service-game-status-report-canceled-released-shut-down/2900-6143/#1

ScreenRant:

https://screenrant.com/sony-cancels-live-service-games-god-of-war/

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony

Play3:

https://www.play3.de/2024/11/08/ps5-absatzzahl-aktive-psn-nutzer-spieleverkaeufe-sony-veroeffentlicht-umfangreiche-statistiken/

Play3:

https://www.play3.de/2023/10/02/playstation-live-service-fokus-war-fuer-die-studios-eine-unangenehme-umstellung/

Jason Schreier, US American journalist

Bloomberg News, news agency

I would like to initiate a discussion on the occasion of the recently announced 500 billion dollar Stargate project in the USA.

Do you think it is possible for Europe to catch up with the existing technological backlog? Or is "Stargate" the final nail in the coffin? And which countries do you see at the forefront of the AI age in the future?

For me, these countries are on the winning side:

USA 🇺🇸 - The USA has been at the forefront of technology right from the start. OpenAI (ChatGPT), Alphabet $GOOGL (-2,28 %) (Gemini), Meta $META (-1,11 %) Microsoft $MSFT (-1,57 %) .... The list of companies relevant to the industry is long. Nowhere else in the world is more invested in AI. "Stargate" will now increase this imbalance many times over

China 🇨🇳 - China acts independently of the West and yet is still a major player with companies such as Tencent $TCEHY (+2,81 %) , Alibaba $BABA (+5,86 %) , Huawei, Xiaomi $1810 (+2,88 %) and Baidu $9888 (+1,94 %) are ideally positioned. Chinese companies are fast and innovative. The gigantic subsidies from the Chinese government also play a decisive role in this context. Another advantage is that the Chinese are currently receiving energy from Russia virtually as a gift.

Japan 🇯🇵 - With SoftBank, Japan has $9984 (-1,64 %) a real AI champion in its country. In Japan, NVIDIA and SoftBank $NVDA (-3,63 %) and SoftBank are building a joint innovative AI infrastructure. The fact that SoftBank and OpenAI are to be the lead partners in the Stargate project and that Masayoshi Son (CEO of SoftBank) will chair the new company will benefit Japan. The huge assets that are being built up there will flow back into the home country in one way or another. The close cooperation with the government (+high subsidies), the leading position in robotics and the recent developments in the semiconductor industry should also be noted.

Singapore 🇸🇬 - Very small country, lots of money, very good government, very well-educated population, lots of expats, lots of foreign investment, very few logistical challenges as a city state...... So things are looking VERY good for Singapore.

UAE 🇦🇪 /Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦/Qatar 🇶🇦 - Rich Gulf states that will invest billions in AI projects abroad (e.g. UAE participation in "Stargate"). They will generate large returns on these investments, while at the same time investing in the digitalization of their own country, thereby bringing great prosperity to their relatively small populations. Although there is also a large expat community in the UAE, including in the field of AI, I think that the Gulf states will mainly benefit from their investment funds.

I am unsure about these countries unsure:

Canada 🇨🇦 - Canada is innovative and wealthy, but there are not really any relevant companies in the AI sector. In addition, the universities are middle class and they lose a lot of talent to their neighbor, the USA. However, the country has potential, also because it is very attractive for foreign specialists.

Taiwan 🇹🇼 - TSMC $2330 from Taiwan supplies the world with chips, including those urgently needed for AI, but the country's heavy dependence on a single company, which has recently been expanding abroad (especially Japan and the USA), poses a risk. The development of the conflict with China and the possible success of Rapidus from Japan and Samsung in the field of 2nm chips will also be decisive for Taiwan's future in the field of AI.

South Korea 🇰🇷 - Technological leader, politically unstable. Companies like Samsung $005930 and SK Hynix $000660 from South Korea are leaders in the field of AI. There is a great deal of expertise in the country and the government is also supporting the transformation. However, I am unsure about the excessive dependence on the chaebols (e.g. Samsung), which account for an unhealthily large proportion of economic output. The dysfunctionality of the rule of law due to corrupt politicians and courts, the recent very tense domestic political situation and the constant threat from neighboring North Korea should also be viewed critically.

India 🇮🇳 - The next few years will show whether India can become the new China. India is growing dynamically and, with its 1.4 billion inhabitants, has a huge potential workforce, but it is still heavily dependent on foreign know-how. India is not as innovative as developed countries and has to deal with domestic challenges such as hunger, which could make investment in AI more difficult. Indian companies are very open to AI and are trying to adapt it quickly, but developing it is another matter.

The Netherlands 🇳🇱 - With ASML $ASML (-0,72 %) the Netherlands is home to one of the most important companies when it comes to AI. Without ASML's machines, the particularly advanced chips required for AI could not be produced. This puts the Netherlands, with its small population, in a rather comfortable position. However, it is also heavily dependent on a single company, which is also increasingly being targeted by geopolitics, with the result that the USA regularly blackmails the Netherlands to dictate where it has to deliver these machines. Recently, there have also been developments that threaten ASML's monopoly.

Germany 🇩🇪 - Germany is good at AI research, but there is a lack of AI champions. Companies such as Siemens $SIE (-0,45 %) are doing well in terms of industrial AI and SAP is also $SAP (-1,87 %) is investing heavily in its own AI, but there is still no sign of a German export hit in the field of AI. There is also a massive lack of investment in AI infrastructure and politicians are blocking rather than promoting. There is a general lack of a national vision, a combination of strategic policy and large-scale private investment, as is the case in other countries. The EU is also more of an obstacle to new investments. The concept of joint ventures is also used less in this country, although this could help to pool knowledge and resources in order to make a difference for one's own country. So all is not lost, but a political reorientation and new entrepreneurial courage are needed to catch up, which is getting bigger every day.

France 🇫🇷 - The French are also innovative and have an AI star in their country with Mistral AI, but they have similar problems to the Germans. Politics at national and EU level and the lack of major investments and new infrastructure are paralyzing the country.

UK 🇬🇧 - With universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, the UK has been conducting top-level research for a long time, including in the field of AI. They are innovative with many expats from abroad, although recently less from continental Europe. Unfortunately, however, they do not have any notable tech companies to call their own. Two of the most innovative tech companies and British hopefuls, ARM $ARM (-3,76 %)

and Graphcore, are now both owned by the aforementioned Japanese SoftBank Group, but this does not mean that the UK can no longer benefit from the positive development of these companies. Nevertheless, they are no longer British.

ConclusionIt will not be easy for Europe to catch up. The competitors are mostly fast, very financially strong, innovative and led by visionaries. We cannot compete with a fragmented capital market, slow decision-making processes and bureaucrats from Brussels. However, it is also clear that the potential is there. We (still) have many bright minds here, but without a fundamental change in policy, decisive reforms and some pioneering spirit, I believe it will be impossible to catch up. The window of opportunity is getting smaller.

How do you see it all? Do you disagree somewhere or are you missing an important country?

NXP Semiconductors takes over Austrian software company + US blacklist weighs on sentiment in China + VW management level salary waiver of over 300 million euros

NXP $NXPI (-2,37 %)Semiconductors takes over Austrian software company

• The European-American chip manufacturer NXP Semiconductors wants to take over the Austrian software company TTTech Auto.
• The semiconductor group is prepared to pay 625 million dollars for the purchase.
• The acquisition is intended to strengthen the automotive division.
• NXP is already one of the largest chip suppliers to the global automotive industry.
• TTTech Auto offers software for the digital control of cars.
• The start-up has its own development and program platform and is already working together with NXP.
• Together they develop programs for software-defined vehicles (SDV).

Markets in the US and Asia / US blacklist weighs on sentiment in China

• While the political tensions between Washington and Beijing are once again weighing on the Chinese stock markets, the Seoul stock exchange is also up significantly, supported by gains in the share price of heavyweight Samsung Electronics.
• The Tokyo stock exchange reacted to the negative cues from Wall Street with slight losses.
• In Shanghai, the Composite Index lost 1.2 percent after the US contradicted reports that the planned higher tariffs by the new US administration under Donald Trump could be less drastic than previously assumed.
• Technology stocks sold off after disappointing statements by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sent Nvidia shares $NVDA (-3,63 %) had sent the Nvidia share plummeting.
• Tencent $TCEHY (+2,81 %) remained under pressure and lost 2.6 percent.
• They had already fallen by over 7 percent the previous day after the USA blacklisted Tencent and other Chinese companies due to suspected links to the Chinese military.

VW $VOW (-0,15 %)Management level salary waiver of over 300 million euros

• Volkswagen's management level is participating in the cost-cutting program by 2030 with a salary waiver of over 300 million euros, with the contribution of the Board of Management being disproportionately high, says Chief Human Resources Officer Gunnar Kilian.
• The restructuring program provides for the reduction of 35,000 jobs in Germany, with 29,000 jobs to be cut in Lower Saxony, without compulsory redundancies.

Wednesday: Stock market dates, economic data, quarterly figures

• ex-dividend of individual stocks
• Comcast USD 0.31

• Quarterly figures / company dates USA / Asia
• No time specified: Samsung key data 2024

• Quarterly figures / company dates Europe
• 07:00 Grenke new business and contribution margin 4Q
• 08:00 Shell Q4 turnover

• Economic data

08:00 DE: New orders November seasonally adjusted FORECAST: 0.0% yoy previously: -1.5% yoy | Manufacturing sales November seasonally adjusted FORECAST: n.a. previous: -1.2% yoy

08:00 DE: Retail sales November seasonally adjusted real OUTLOOK: +1.0% yoy previous: -0.5% yoy

08:45 FR: Consumer Confidence December PROGNOSE: 90 previous: 90

11:00 EU: Producer Prices November Eurozone OUTLOOK: +1.0% yoy/-1.8% yoy previous: +0.4% yoy/-3.2% yoy

11:00 EU: Economic Sentiment Index December Economic Sentiment Eurozone Forecast: 95.6 Previous: 95.8 Eurozone Industrial Confidence Forecast: -12.1 Previous: -11.1 Eurozone Consumer Confidence Forecast: -14.5 Previous: -14.5 Previous: -13.8

14:15 US: ADP Labor Market Report December Private Sector Employment FORECAST: +136,000 Previous: +146,000 jobs

14:30 US: Initial jobless claims previous week FORECAST: 215,000 Previous: 211,000

20:00 US: Minutes of the December 17/18 FOMC meeting

21:00 US: Consumer Credit 11/24

$700 (+2,88 %)
$TCEHY (+2,81 %)
$80700

The Department of Defense today classified Tencent as a "Chinese military company operating in the United States".

Tencent shares plummet after being blacklisted as a Chinese defense contractor by the Ministry of Defense.

Tencent is owned by dozens of state pension funds.

It's time for 100% divestment from China-based companies.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3293654/us-adds-tencent-catl-list-chinese-firms-allegedly-helping-beijings-military

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q78wn9g8zo

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-06/us-adds-tencent-to-chinese-military-blacklist-shares-decline

Hi, I really need your help. I have almost 20% invested in China in my growth portfolio.

However, this only includes the 4 shares: $BABA (+5,86 %)
$1211 (+2,45 %)
$BIDU (+2,23 %)
$TCEHY (+2,81 %)

The 20% is also a bit much for me, due to the risk that can already be mentioned, but I already see and believe in the excess return in the Chinese market. The overweight is also due to the recent strong rise in the market, which means that all 4 positions are up by around 30%.

I would like to hear your assessment as a Getquin community and what you think about the China share. A complete sale of China is currently out of the question for me, so the absolute China opponents can save their comments.

Also, which of the 4 shares should I sell? Tencent or BYD with a strong plus? Or Baidu, because it is the riskiest, or Alibaba, because it has the worst sales growth?

Thanks in advance

Reddit announced on Thursday an initial public offering on Thursday. Reddit was founded 2005 by tech founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman founded the company.

According to PitchBook Reddit has so far raised around 1.3 billion US dollars in funding to date and is targeting a market cap of 10 billion US dollars estimated.

Reddit was founded 2006 by the publishing house Condé Nast before it was 2011 was spun off as an independent company in 2011. Advancethe parent company of Condé Nastnow owns 34% of the voting rights.

The shareholders include Tencent ($TCEHY (+2,81 %) ) and Sam Altman, from OpenAI.