Hong Kong stocks lead losses as China’s Covid cases surge; Mixed Asian markets

Hong Kong listed shares of JD.com traded down more than 5% in the afternoon after the company confirmed pay cuts for its management team.

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

The company added that it would pay social insurance contributions for Deppon Logistics employees and set up a housing fund.

“The Employee Benefits Enhancement Plan is being promoted, with a focus on front-line staff,” the company told CNBC.

–Iris Wang

Investing in U.S.-listed Chinese companies is tantamount to playing “fantasy football” as U.S. regulators continue to audit companies, an asset management firm says.

Kyle Bass, founder and CIO of Hayman Capital Management, said recent reports from the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board obtaining “good access” to requested information have yet to be confirmed, and reiterated the financial risks faced investors in Chinese companies listed in the United States. .

“They own a stock claiming a Cayman Islands subsidiary that has no voting rights and no access to assets in the event of bankruptcy,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia,” when told. asked him if Chinese stocks in the United States were “investable”.

Chinese companies listed overseas, such as Alibaba and JD.com, use a variable interest entity structure, in which an offshore entity is created, circumventing Chinese restrictions on foreign investment and preventing investors in American stocks to have majority voting rights.

The US-listed company is usually a holding company formed outside of the US and China, and may not own shares of the China-based company.

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

—Jihye Lee

Indonesian GoTo Group posted a higher cumulative loss for nine months compared to the same period a year ago, although quarterly losses have narrowed with cost reductions.

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

Its share price fell 6% on Tuesday morning in Jakarta and marks a 48% decline in the share price since its IPO in April this year.

The company announced job cuts last Friday as part of broader cost-cutting plans, which should be reflected later in 2023, he said.

–Sheila Chiang

One of Malaysia’s election leaders, the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), a national political alliance based in Sarawak in eastern Malaysia, said he supported the Perikatan Nasional coalition to form the government and would not work with Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan.

Malaysia’s king has asked major coalitions to present their candidates for prime minister by 2 p.m. local time after Saturday’s election was inconclusive.

“We have always been told [sic] that we will not be able to work with the DAP here and also with Pakatan,” GPS General Secretary Alexander Nanta Linggi told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.” The DAP is a progressive party in Pakatan.

“Over the past few days during the election, they’ve attacked us so much. So it’s kind of hard…to form a government, to be very objective in that sense.”

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

—Su-Lin Tan

Once a Wall Street darling, Amazon has lost some of its luster this year. The e-commerce giant’s stock fell more than 40%, significantly underperforming the S&P500which has decreased by about 15% over the same period.

Is it time for investors to reinvest? On Thursday, two market professionals squared off on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” to argue for and against buying the stock.

CNBC Pro subscribers can learn more here.

— Zavier Ong

Baidu is expected to experience a slight decline in revenue in the third quarter of 2022, according to an average of Refinitiv poll estimates.

The company is expected to see a 0.05% decline in revenue to 31.904 billion yuan ($4.46 billion) for the July-September quarter, after reporting 31.92 billion yuan for the same period a year ago. one year old.

Meanwhile, Tiktok rival Kuaishou is expected to post 10.2% revenue growth in the third quarter to 22.58 billion yuan, according to a separate Refinitiv survey – which would be the fastest pace of annual growth. slower since the company started reporting earnings.

Hong Kong listed shares of Kuaishou fell 4.1% before earnings, while Baidu shares were down 0.44% in the morning session.

– Jihye Lee

Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson said he expects a “pretty sharp drop in inflation” and predicts when that might happen.

But he said there are two areas that stand out, where inflation could be “stickier”.

CNBC Pro subscribers can learn more here.

—Weizhen Tan

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

American crude was slightly higher at $80.08 a barrel after touching $75.08 in Monday’s session.

Crude Brent gained slightly to $87.52 a barrel. It reached $82.31 in the previous session.

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

—Abigail from

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

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

“Binance has actually gone so far as to offer Singapore dollar listings and accepts Singapore-specific payment methods such as PayNow and PayLah,” he said in the statement, adding that he had received from numerous complaints about Binance between January and August of last year.

The MAS then reiterated the risks that investors face when trading digital assets.

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

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

– Jihye Lee

Shares slid in a volatile trading session on Monday to kick off the short holiday week.

The S&P 500 lost 0.39% to 3,949.94 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.09% to end the day at 11,024.51. 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 of disney shares, which jumped more than 6%.

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

—Carmen Reinicke