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This week’s Street View takes us to Shanghai’s rapidly aging Maglev train, which was once the city’s pride and joy when it first opened in 2004 offering the world’s fastest speeds in a commercial rail service. The Maglev celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, even as debate grows about a technology that has been overtaken by slower but less costly high speed rail trains in the last few years. Read Full Post…
After a 2 week pause with no new listings, the market for overseas tech IPOs has come chugging back to life with a strong trading debut for video sharing site Xunlei (Nasdaq: XNET). That solid performance could bode well for online karaoke company Tiange, which has just filed for its own new listing in Hong Kong, continuing a recent trend towards more Chinese Internet listings in the former British colony. Both news bits provide the latest evidence that the overseas market for Chinese IPOs is finding a second wind after a losing momentum in April and May. That new momentum is likely to last through August when e-commerce leader Alibaba is expected to make what could be the largest IPO ever by an Internet company. Read Full Post…
US-listed Chinese companies were in the spotlight last week, after a new congressional report detailed the risks they pose to investors due to the unique structure they use to qualify for trading in New York. Uncertainties created by the variable interest entity (VIE) structure are just the latest in a long list of unusual risks that highlight why Chinese firms are quite different from other companies that trade in New York.
But while their risks may be different and often bigger, the rewards of investing in some of China’s biggest corporate names are also potentially huge, as evidenced by exponential growth for shares of some names. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on June 20. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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The web clean-up that began in April with a relatively innocuous-looking crackdown on Sina’s (Nasdaq: SINA) video sites is showing signs of becoming a major movement, with word that regulators in Beijing are investigating 52 website operators for violent and pornographic content, including giants Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU). News of this new clean-up comes after similar reports emerged last week that online game operators were coming under similar scrutiny, and indicates the current crackdown could last for the next few months. Read Full Post…
Investors were clearly focused on the bottom line in the newly released earnings for solar panel maker Trina (NYSE: TSL) and leading microblogging site Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), which are both trying hard to show they can post consistent profits on a long-term basis. For Trina the news was strong, as the company posted its third consecutive quarterly profit after several years of losses during a prolonged sector downturn. The prognosis was less stellar for Weibo, which posted a loss for the period even though the figure showed positive trends. Read Full Post…
Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat has grown so quickly over the last 2 years that it was almost inevitable that the popular mobile messaging service would come under fire from China’s state-run media or Beijing regulators. The service briefly clashed with the telecoms regulator last year during a high-profile spat with leading telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL), and now WeChat is coming under fire from leading broadcaster CCTV for becoming a hotbed for rumor mongering and fraudulent advertisements. Read Full Post…
You know that things are bad when leading online video site Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) doesn’t issue a press release trumpeting its recent receipt of simultaneous broadcast rights for the highly hyped return of the US television series “24”. That’s my conclusion after having to read about this relatively big win for Youku in the news headlines rather than a company press release. In fact, Youku Tudou may deliberately want to downplay this latest triumph to avoid attracting Beijing censors who have recently started banning some popular US television series from online video sites. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 7. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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A series of announcements late last week from leading web portal Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) looks clearly aimed at calming nervous investors who may sense the company is at a crossroads that could mark the start of a new downturn for the stock. That’s my assessment after Sina’s unusual early release of preliminary first-quarter results, which showed the company is still quite healthy financially despite a recent government crackdown on 2 of its sites and a lukewarm stock market debut for its Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) microblogging platform. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 3-5. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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