TMT/Internet

• Founded in 2012, Beijing Yunzhisheng Information Technology Co. (also known as Unisound) is a Chinese company focused on AI powered voice and speech processing technologies.
• Unisound provides voice recognition, language processing and big data solutions to home appliances, automobile, healthcare and education companies.
• Since the inception of the company, it has raised US$361 million in funding. 

• Broadcom remains as one of the best-positioned semiconductors stocks, but lower topline growth is to be expected going forward.
• Broadcom has so far done a great job at expanding its product and service offerings through M&A deals.
• Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) has just reported yet another strong fiscal Q1 2023 quarter, marked by high top and bottom line growth.

• There is one change for the ASX20, two for the ASX100, four for the S&P/ASX 200 INDEX and 12 adds/ 9 deletes for the ASX300 Index at the March rebalance.
• There will be between 7-20 days of ADV to trade on the ASX100 and ASX200 adds while the impact on the deletions is between 1-11 days of ADV.
• The adds have outperformed the deletes on all indices over the last few months. Short interest has jumped on a lot of the large deletes.

• Okta delivered a strong fourth-quarter performance which was highlighted by an all-around beat as well as a significant improvement in profitability and cash flow.
• The end of the 2023 fiscal was strong, with sustained improvement in its go-to-market business performance.
• In this report, we have carried out a fundamental analysis of the historical financial statements of the company.

• Snowflake had a good quarter, with product revenue increasing by 54% in the fourth quarter and by 70% for the entire fiscal year, reaching $1.9 billion.
• This was significantly less noticeable at the top end of their customer base and more noticeable among foreign, SMB, and commercial clients.
• In addition, they intend to acquire LeapYear Technologies to improve their data clean room capabilities and cloud-based data warehousing business.

• Splunk completed the year on a positive note and delivered an all-around beat while exceeding its forecasted targets for revenue, total ARR, cloud ARR, operating margin, and free cash flow.
• In Q4, they increased overall ARR by 18% year on year to $3.674 billion.
• In Q4, Splunk secured major deals against a large enterprise competitor by demonstrating that adequate security, cloud migration, and pricing are insufficient.

• The index changes for the ASX Index family for the March 2023 Rebalance were announced after the close on Friday 3rd March 2023.
• There will be one, two, and four changes for ASX 20, ASX 100, and ASX 200 indices, respectively. There will also be 12 ADDs and 9 DELs for ASX 300.
• In this insight, we take a closer look at our expectations for index flows, short interest, and recent price performance of the names involved in the rebalance event.

• Bilibili reported 4Q2022 results. Net revenue increased 6.2% YoY to RMB6,142m (vs consensus RMB6,154m) while operating losses expanded to RMB2,327M (vs consensus RMB1,905.9m).
• Mobile Games revenues declined 11.5% YoY in 4Q2022 due to the restructuring of the games biz to focus on self-developed gaming titles.
• We expect Bilibili’s earnings to remain under pressure with aggressive cost controls to impact growth and Mobile games to slow-down in 2023E with lack of new titles for launch.

• NetEase delivered a mediocre set of results for the last quarter as it failed to meet market expectations with respect to net revenues.
• The company’s legacy titles, including the Westward Journey Online series and Fantasy Westward Journey Online did perform well and helped deliver an earnings beat.
• The company’s new game, the Egg Party, hit the Chinese market by storm this quarter.

• Salesforce had another strong quarter and delivered an all-around beat.
• Besides, the Data cloud became their most crucial cloud, enhancing each Salesforce cloud and enhancing the automation, intelligence, and real-time of every aspect of their Customer 360.
• With native integration of Tableau and Data Cloud, they recently released Tableau plus Data Cloud.

• Despite pandemic, geopolitical, policy, and macroeconomic headwinds, Autodesk gave a strong financial performance in the quarter and delivered an all-around beat.
• The product subscription renewal rate and its net revenue retention rate remain strong.
• The company continues to make excellent progress in its strategic initiatives, which drives accelerating the adoption of the Autodesk Construction Cloud.

• Workday produced strong Q4 results and delivered an all-around beat with a decent performance in key operating measures and a 22% increase in subscription revenue for the quarter and the entire fiscal year.
• While Talent Optimization is Workday’s fastest-growing SKU with an attach rate on new transactions of more than 85% in fiscal year 2023, approximately 50% of all active Workday HCM customers currently use Workday Skills Cloud.
• The company intends to boost margin expansion in fiscal 2024 while returning to a 20% plus subscription revenue growth when the environment recovers.

• ChatGPT has focused the investment community on the potential of AI to drive business performance and investment returns.
• Forbes picked Adobe as its top AI pick in 2023. We pick Appier, which is a faster-growing alternative in the digital marketing space.
• Appier’s revenue grew by over 50% last year and unlike many SaaS companies, it is profitable.

• JF Wealth Holdings (9636 HK) is looking to raise US$143m in its Hong Kong IPO.
• JF Wealth (JFW) is an online investment decision-making solution provider in China, focusing on the online investor content services market. 
• In this note, we discuss our earnings estimates, and thoughts on valuation.

• Mathpresso (Qanda app) uses AI technology to provide homework assistance for math problems. 
• As of February 2023, the Qanda app solved 4.7 billion math problems. The Qanda app is available in numerous languages including Korean, English, Spanish, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Thai.
• The company has received $122 million in funding since the inception of the company. Major investors in Mathpresso include Google, Softbank, Smilegate Investment, Legend Holdings, and GGV Capital. 

• As expected, Nitro Software Ltd (NTO AU)‘s board has unanimously backed Potentia’s three-tiered revised Offer.
• On the 23rd of February, Potentia bumped with a $2.17/share unconditional Offer, increasing to $2.20 if they get to 75% interest, and $2.25 if ≥25% tendering opt for scrip.
• Where does this leave Alludo? Nitro reckons Alludo can’t raise their offer because of ASIC’s Truth In Takeovers policy. But Alludo do pocket the A$5mn break fee for their troubles. 

• Baidu managed to deliver an all-around in the last quarter beat despite the fact that its financial performance was impacted by a challenging environment because of a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases as well as its impact on the broader economy.
• Both feeds distributed through the Baidu app and mobile search queries continued experiencing double-digit growth in the quarter.
• Baidu is expected to launch Ernie Bot, its new conversational AI bot, powered by its latest in-house large language models, to counter ChatGPT.

• Alibaba managed to deliver an all-around beat despite experiencing significant challenges because of the rapid change in the Covid situation.
• The company delivered double-digit growth in its free cash flow and adjusted EBITA through operating efficiency and cost optimization.
• The strong net cash position of Alibaba is supported by its healthy cash flow generation.

• BILI’s 4Q results missed expectations across key metrics from revenue and MAU growth to guidance for 2023
• The results suggest fast growth will not return in 2023 and an uncertain road to breakeven by 2024.
• Reiterate our bearish view on the stock and see further downside risks ahead.

• 4QFY22 results in-line with guidance and expectations; guidance for FY23 lower
• Growth outlook while weakening, is surprisingly stronger-than-expected
• Share price unlikely to move up materially due to overhang from Figma acquisition; but valuations seem fair given growth is holding up; fair value (FV) rises to USD365

• The fourth quarter looks like a weak quarter according to the growth and the loss.
• However, deducting the termination cost for game studios, we believe the financials will be promising in 2023.
• We believe the stock has an upside of 19% for the yearend 2023.

• Weibo’s 4Q22 top line was in line with our est., and non-GAAP net income beat our est./cons. by 34%/46%, due to reverse of a contingent payment agreement with Jiamian Tech. 
• While we raise its revenue forecast in 2023, we also expect its costs and expenses to rebound due to the recovery of offline promotion events.
• Maintain BUY and TP unchanged, which implies 13X PE in 2023.

• Reportedly (Bloomberg) Hong Kong broadband play HKBN Ltd (1310 HK) has received a takeover offer from  I Square’s HGC Global Communications. 
• HKBN’s shares were halted in the late afternoon trading session yesterday after gaining 11.6%. The reason stated for the suspension was “possible inside information“, not pursuant to the Takeovers Code. 
• Last May, Bloomberg reported that KKR, PAG, and Stonepeak – amongst others – were considering bids for HKBN. The market cap at the time was US$1.6bn versus US$934mn now.

• On 1 March, it was announced that Sweden’s EQT will be acquiring a 68% controlling stake in SK Shieldus (393820 KS).
• EQT Partners is controlled by Sweden’s powerful Wallenberg family. EQT will invest a total amount of 2 trillion won (US$1.5 billion) in SK Shieldus.
• Our NAV analysis of SK Square suggests NAV of 7.9 trillion won or NAV per share of 55,507, representing a 45% upside from current levels.

• Riiid uses AI machine learning technology including “reinforcement learning algorithm” to improve student education.
• Riiid has a strong presence in the TOEIC test prep services in Asia. Now, it is expanding its business in the SAT and ACT prep markets in the United States.
• Since the company’s inception, the company has received about $250 million in funding including from Softbank Vision Fund.

• One of the most promising projects that Kakao Brain is currently developing includes an AI Korean language model called KoGPT, which would be similar to ChatGPT service. 
• In February 2023, Kakao Brain created a major magazine cover which was the first time in South Korea that an AI-based artwork has been published on a major magazine cover.
• There are five major companies including Kakao Brain, Naver Corp, SK Telecom, KT Corp, and LG AI Research that are actively developing Korean language versions of Chat GPT.

• Applied Materials performed well in the first fiscal quarter and delivered an all-around beat.
• For the seventh consecutive quarter, the company increased its backlog.
• We give Applied Materials a ‘Hold’ rating with a revised target price.

• JF Wealth Holdings (9636 HK) is looking to raise US$143m in its Hong Kong IPO.
• JF Wealth (JFW) is an online investment decision-making solution provider in China, focusing on the online investor content services market.
• With total gross billings of RMB2bn in 2021, it was the second largest online investment decision-making solution provider in China with a 5.9% market share.

• Twilio delivered a strong result with revenues above Wall Street expectations and strong profitability as against the analyst expectation of a negative EPS.
• The fact remains that its revenue growth lags behind booking growth.
• In this report, we have carried out a fundamental analysis of the historical financial statements of the company.

• Beisen Holdings (1667838D CH) is looking to raise about US$200m in its upcoming HK IPO. The deal will be run by Morgan Stanley and CICC.  
• Beisen Holdings is the largest provider of cloud-based HCM solutions in China in terms of revenues in 2021, according to CIC. Its platform iTalentX delivers cloud-native SaaS products. 
• Its platform is the first and the only in the industry to offer a suite of cloud-based applications covering organization’s HCM needs throughout the entire employee lifecycle, according to CIC. 

• Despite macroeconomic uncertainty, NVIDIA’s stock has been on a solid bull run.
• The company’s revenue was down in the quarter but managed to surpass analyst expectations.
• The sequential growth in revenues was driven by the robust reception of its 40 Series GeForce RTX GPU based on the architecture of Ada Lovelace.

• HubSpot delivered profitable growth in the quarter with revenue increasing 35% year on year in constant currency in Q4.
• The company delivered an all-around beat and saw an operating profit margin of 14% in the fourth quarter and 10% for the year.
• In this report, we have carried out a fundamental analysis of the historical financial statements of the company.

• Some low liquidity stocks in the TOPIX Index carry a liquidity factor of 0.75x resulting in their actual index weights being smaller than their default weights.
• These names are reviewed every April and if the liquidity factor of a stock gets removed, the stock will enjoy buying flows from passive trackers of TOPIX.
• In this insight, we take a look at Quiddity’s final predictions for the names that are likely to see their Liquidity Factors removed in April 2023.

• Bloomberg reportedHKBN Ltd (1310 HK) has received a takeover offer from HGC Global Communications at a valuation of more than US$1 billion (implies around HK$6 per share).
• The shares rose 11.6% to HK$5.59 before entering a trading halt. The rumoured price is underwhelming compared to historical multiples and share prices. 
• HKBN has a relatively concentrated shareholder register which suggests that the rumoured takeover premium of around 20% is not going to cut it.

• Another valuable long-short opportunity has arisen this time with K-New Deal rebalancing. The pair consists of Douzone Bizon and KMW, which have switched places in the Internet Index’s top three.
• Due to their relatively low trading volume, the passive flow size (x ADTV) that this pair will face at the closing price on March 9th is expected to be significant.
• This creates sufficient opportunities for a Long-Short setup in terms of day or swing trading. As KMW is a constituent of the KOSDAQ 150, it is possible to short KMW.

• We discuss end of the mandatory lock-up periods for 35 stocks in Korea in March 2023, among which 8 are in KOSPI and 27 are in KOSDAQ.
• These 35 stocks on average could be subject to further selling pressures in March and could underperform relative to the market. 
• Among these 35 stocks, the top 5 market cap stocks include Nh Investment & Securities, WCP, Bionote, Jeio, and Dreamtech. 

• IQIYI Inc (IQ US) ‘s share price is up 30.8% YTD primarily driven by upbeat 4Q2022 results. The main highlight was strong increase in members alongside improvement in OPM.
• The company’s aggressive cost cutting measures have helped reach operating profits, however, we don’t think this is sustainable given user growth depends on content.
• We expect iQiyi’s 1Q2023E results to be strong driven by the launch of The Knockout series, however, further cutting down costs will impact the company’s long-term prospects.

• The recently announced Meta Verified could generate an incremental $2.2B in revenues.
• Incremental layoffs being reported could amount to $5B in incremental savings this year.
• Between the two reports, we could easily see 10% upside to EPS.

• Share buybacks and stock-based compensation also will be an important part of the upcoming earnings release.
• GAAP operating profitability will be in the spotlight as the company lays off a significant amount of its workforce.
• The level of share buybacks will be a key part of Salesforce’s growth strategy.

• ChipMOS results missed expectations with capacity utilization falling, dragging down profitability.
• The company sees 1Q23E as the bottom for its performance, followed by a 2Q23E rebound. However, it says it believes the Memory industry may take longer to recover.
• We believe ChipMOS is cheap if one looks through the cycle, and it is relatively unloved by the Street hence the expectations bar is set low.

• SHEN reported better than expected fourth quarter revenue as more customers subscribe to faster broadband speeds
• Our focus is on the seasonally low number of customer additions in the quarter even though SHEN was building out its optical fiber network.
• Our negative bias has been built on SHEN’s capital expenditure plans requiring the Company to build debt and the timing of when SHEN would reach free cash flow positive

• We conducted interviews with Temu and Shein merchants. We expect Temu to be more aggressive in expansion. Most metrics of Temu are improving, and it creates increasing pressure on Shein. 
• Yet, investors should be aware about Temu’s widening losses and the possible margin drag in the domestic eCommerce business due to the subsidy campaign launched by JD.
• We revised our forecasts on Temu’s GMV/non-GAAP net loss in 2023 from USD 2bn/(1)bn to USD 5bn/(3)bn. We cut PDD’s TP to US$100.

• Grab Holdings (GRAB US) 4Q2022 numbers late last week made encouraging reading with revenues exceeding expectations significantly despite slow GMV growth in the quarter, as it maintained regional category leadership.
• The company saw continued improvement in segment-adjusted EBITDA margins in 4Q2022 versus 3Q2022 for both mobility and deliveries, with the latter making significant progress towards steady-state margins. 
• Grab‘s relatively high regional cost remains a drag but should stabilise here and outside this, it looks to be firmly on track to accelerate profitably. 

• PCCW Ltd (8 HK)‘s FY22 revenue, EBITDA, and profit increased by 2%, 6%, and 11% to HK$36.1bn,  HK$12.4bn, and HK$834mn.
• HKT Ltd (6823 HK)‘s revenue, EBITDA, and profit increased by 0.5%, 3%, and 0.4% to HK$34.1bn,  HK$13.1bn, and HK$4.7mn.
• The dividend pass-through is 100%. PCCW’s current discount to NAV is in line with its 52-week average.

• BABA reported F3Q23 (C4Q22) total revenue largely in line with our est. and cons. Non-GAAP net profit beat our est. and cons. by 5% and 13% YoY.
• Taobao will face pricing pressure against JD and PDD. We expect BABA to focus on user content, which leads to improvement in app time spent and advertising. 
• We cut TP from US$130 to US$110 to reflect intensified competition in eCommerce. Maintain BUY rating due to recovery in CMR and international retail, and rebound in cloud business. 

• Vision Fund II private companies accounted for 87% of the fund’s 3QFY22 fair value; versus investment cost, private companies’ downward valuation revisions have been more modest than the public companies
• Vision Fund II accounted for 22% of the group’s 3QFY22 equity value of holdings, so any further downward valuation revisions would hurt group NAV and add to Masa’s Softbank liabilities
• Softbank currently trades at a 42% discount to its stated NAV; we believe that the stated NAV is likely to be overstated, with private company valuations needing further scrutiny

• Baidu delivered 4Q22 results with top line beating cons. by 3.2% and non-GAAP net income beating cons. by 13.4%. 
• We expect both its ads and AI cloud businesses to recover with accelerated pace, which could partially offset the increase of R&D investment in AI related technologies.
• Reiterate BUY rating and slightly raise TP to US$ 172 to reflect the on-track recovery and AIGC synergy. Our TP implies 17.9x PE in 2023.

• NetEase’s 4Q22 revenue was in-line with cons., while its non-GAAP net income missed cons. by (8%) because of a one-off, non-renewal contract with Blizzard.
• We still see NetEase as a BUY because of <Eggy Party>’s overseas publishing and <Justice Mobile>, which we estimate will contribute about 1-2bn/3-4bn RMB for annual gross billing, respectively. 
• We maintain BUY and TP US$ 87, which implies 16.0X PE in 2023.

• Chinese food delivery giant Meituan launched a recruitment campaign in Hong Kong signaling a push into the Asian financial hub dominated by foreign on-demand service leaders foodpanda and Deliveroo.
• Meituan is hiring delivery workers including motorcycle and bike riders as well as so-called foot soldiers who can dispatch orders by foot, a recruitment document showed.
• As an incentive, Meituan said new riders who complete a certain volume of orders will receive a bonus of HK$2,500 ($319).

• Microsoft is improving its search market share, according to analysts.
• The arrival of ChatGPT hammered Alphabet stock may be ahead as revenue effects sink in, says analyst.
• The company is also improving its market share and improving its search market share.

• The U.S. is reportedly working to implement China semiconductor restrictions with South Korean firms, after doing the same with Japanese and Dutch firms.
• Nanya management sees a bottom for Memory prices in 1Q23E; we look at Long Micron vs. Short Nanya.
• Firms are significantly expanding semiconductor capacity in Singapore, with the latest being Applied Materials and French firm Soitec.

• IceKredit, a Chinese AI-focused credit risk and management company, plans to export its AI-powered products and solutions to financial institutions in Southeast Asia.
• Founded in 2015, IceKredit helps lenders to establish an automated end-to-end digital lending process – from application pre-screening to collections – by providing risk mitigation products and services.
• In the past two years, the firm has raised over US$58 million in series C funding, a large part of which will be used for its Southeast Asian expansion, the company says.

• The index committee has continued to use a 6-month minimum listing history leading to five changes to the SSE STAR50 (STAR50 INDEX) in March.
• One way turnover is estimated at 4.95% and will result in a one-way trade of CNY 4,413m. The estimated impact on the deletes is higher than that on the adds.
• The inclusions have outperformed the deletions over multiple time periods. There will be pre-positions on the stocks and those could be unwound over the next week or two.

• Meituan has been hiring delivery workers in Hong Kong since February 20.
• JD will provide a subsidy of RMB1.5 billion to customers to compete with Pinduoduo (PDD) in early March.
• Four companies released financial performance for 4Q22, including Baidu, iQiyi, NetEase, and Sohu.

• Intel cut its dividend by 2/3rd, freeing up $4B in cash.
• The company revised own capital intensity guidance for 2023 to low 30s% from 35%, while maintaining 24/25 guidance.
• Recent $11B debt raise and Mobile eye shares should provide enough capital for the next year.

Lucror Analytics Morning Views comprise our fundamental credit analysis, opinions and trade recommendations on high yield issuers in the region, based on key company-specific developments in the past 24 hours. Our Morning Views include a section with a brief market commentary, key market indicators and a macroeconomic and corporate event calendar.

• China Jinmao Holdings
• Lenovo
• China Datang Corp Renewable Power

• BABA’s December results highlighted how the performance of this e-commerce giant – as a proxy for China consumption – increasingly tracks Chinese economy.
• The Alibaba that suffered from China’s slump in 2022 should also be the Alibaba that stands to reap the fruits from China’s recovery in 2023.
• Trading at 12x PE on the cusp of economic recovery, the payoff of BABA is much better for bulls than bears. Maintain $500 billion target valuation. Buy.

• Latest Nvidia and Apple developments are positive signals for Hon Hai, we continue to view Hon Hai as a Structural Long and also outline a potential Long/Short.
• The Nvidia chips Hon Hai is partnered with to use in its EV autonomous driving systems are based on 7-nm technology, thus restricted for any mainland China competitors.
• On the Apple front, Hon Hai is also reported to have won exclusive production for the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

• Fortinet had a mixed set of fourth-quarter results with revenues failing to meet Wall Street expectations despite market share gains.
• The company succeeded in delivering an earnings beat and held on to its market positioning.
• Its 42% product revenue growth has made the company one of the top product revenue companies in the cybersecurity industry.

• Long Micron vs. Short Nanya – We remain biased to Long Micron vs. Nanya Technology based on multiple factors.
• Relative valuation and inventory management appears to favor Micron. Nanya Technology’s inventory days blow-out increases risk of write-downs impacting its next earnings.
• Potential news flow also appears to favor Micron as the US CHIPS Act rolls out.

• Shopify delivered an all-around beat in the previous quarter and ended 2022 on a positive note.
• The company introduced Shopify Audiences, Shopify Collabs, POS Go, Tap to Pay, integrated Twitter Shopping and YouTube channels, and continued to expand the Shop app to make it simpler for retailers to interact with and develop relationships with customers.
• They also introduced Shopify Markets and Markets Pro.

• Despite ongoing difficulties with the global economic environment, Akamai produced strong results in the fourth quarter, exceeding market expectations in terms of both, revenues as well as earnings.
• Their rapidly expanding Compute business, the sustained high demand for their security solutions, and higher-than-anticipated shipping traffic contributed to their revenue growth.
• In this report, we have carried out a fundamental analysis of the historical financial statements of the company.

• Synopsys had a strong start to the year and managed to meet the revenue expectations of Wall Street driven by its execution and robust technology portfolio.
• The company saw $6.9 billion in noncancelable backlog despite slower revenue growth in the semiconductor industry and robust, steady, time-based business models.
• Synopsys has a wide IP portfolio and they expect a continuance of designs, requiring more communication bandwidth, processing, storage, and security in ever more sophisticated silicon technologies.

• Cisco Systems delivered another strong quarter, exceeding the top and bottom line expectations of analysts.
• The company saw consecutive double-digit growth in its customer markets’ commercial and enterprise sectors, and the public sector performed better than usual.
• We give Cisco Systems a ‘Hold’ rating with a revised target price.

• Grab reported 4Q2022 results yesterday. Q4 revenue more than quadrupled to $502m (vs consensus $403.48) while reported a negative adjusted EBITDA of $111m (vs consensus $137m) vs $305m in 4Q2021.
• Deliveries business went on to report positive adjusted EBITDA driven by improvement in take rate coupled with reduction in total incentives.
• Grab Holdings (GRAB US) share price dropped 8.29% at the end of yesterday’s trade despite the company accelerating its profit timeline to breakeven in 4Q2023 vs 2H2024 previously.

• American Tower stated during FY 2022 results presentation that debt reduction is its main priority. The probability of a takeover bid for Cellnex by American Tower and Brookfield is reduced.
• Cellnex on 14.7x EV/NTM EBITDAe is trading cheaply vs. AMT on 19.5x and below private equity deals at 25-30x. I believe that Cellnex’s fundamentals are solid, and would be long.
• Cellnex is the undisputed European leader in telecommunications towers with both high cash flow visibility (growth forecasted at 18% for the period 2021-2025e) and trading at 7.3% 22e FCF yield.

• Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Z IN) have yet again been bombarded with a corporate hurdle since the NCLT has admitted the company into CIRP relating to Siti Cable Network (SITINET IN).
• It is found that ZEEL has created provisions in the balance sheet, however it should be noted that the CRIP might lead to cash outflow in future. 
• Apart from the current CIRP, ZEEL also has other litigation risks that should not be overlooked.

• Nvidia’s risk-reward profile remains unattractive, according to the company’s recent earnings report.
• Nvidia’s stock-based compensation also highlights some problems related to inventory levels and the amount of stock- based compensation.
• The company’s share price has risen 14% following recent earnings, the report says.

• Tencent faced formidable resistance at 385 where old lows and old highs coincided and was our short level outlined on January 17.
• 300 is our base line downside target. March will be a bearish month. Buy zone at sub-300.
• Macro is constructive if 270 holds. Current decline is labeled a deep correction of the October to late January rally.

• Airbnb had a solid year in 2022 with revenues growing 40% year-over-year.
• Moreover, they saw that guest bookings for trips continued to rise, maintaining a robust backlog for Q1.
• Excluding all of the Mainland China listings, the team increased supply by 900,000 listings, or 16%, in comparison to a year ago.

• Gartner drove a strong performance with double-digit growth in contract value, revenue, EBITDA and EPS.
• Its research business continues to be its greatest and most lucrative segment, with a 9% year-over-year increase in revenue.
• In addition, they helped 9 of their top 10 countries experience double-digit growth, with the tenth experiencing high single-digit growth.

• A rather unusual price movement came out on February 20 for HLB. On the first trading day after the board of directors’ decision, the price reached the upper daily limit.
• The short covering got to a temporarily excessive level in the process of securing appraisal rights should be the reason that led to the upper limit.
• We should design a trading setup targeting excessive short covering-triggered price overheating in split-off events. At this point, the most likely candidate to pursue a split-off is DB Hitek.

• Following several years of sustained revenue share loss, Search’s digital advertising revenue market share has stabilised, having seemingly retained its core advertising customers.
• With China’s economic growth recovery, Baidu is perfectly positioned to accelerate its core marketing revenue growth, which is also a high-margin operation.
• Baidu is set up for significant group margin expansion as the higher-margin core marketing business returns to positive annualised growth and it continues to expand AI Cloud margins.

• Potentia has returned with an improved three-part offer for Nitro Software Ltd (NTO AU). The base offer of A$2.17 is 0.9% higher than Alludo’s A$2.15 offer. 
• The offer could rise to A$2.20 or A$2.25 per share based on hitting additional conditions. There is a clear path for the final offer to reach A$2.20 per share. 
• A A$2.25 per share offer is unlikely due to the onerous 25% scrip acceptance condition. At the last close, the gross spread to the likely final A$2.20 offer is 0.5%.

• We’re now two-thirds through the Taiwan Semiconductor earnings season and about one-third through the Taiwan Hardware earnings season.
• Semiconductor gross margins declines have been relatively large, and we believe are tracking to be worse than what consensus expected going into the earnings season.
• There have been few examples of inventory situations improving for semicondcutor companies; results data released so far indicates a potentially deeper trough than previously expected.

• The three companies Nvidia, TSMC, and ASML are all key global leaders in the AI industry chain.
• Nvidia’s latest results indicate that the company could be returning to a period of multi-year growth and an inflection point for AI demand.
• One can consider going Long a basket of Nvidia, ASML, and TSMC based on a structural growth thesis for AI demand.

• U.S. Commerce Secretary gave a new speech providing additional public detail about the U.S. CHIPS Act aimed at re-shoring the manufacture of semiconductors in the U.S.
• Emphasis on national security means that financial cost is now secondary for the U.S. and we should not expect any loosening of chip restrictions for China.
• Taiwan companies are straddling a “sweet spot” given they are not restricted, can invest in the U.S. expansion, maintain local non-U.S. advantages, and have had their China-based competition weakened.

• Kratos Studios, a Web3 gaming venture based in India, has raised about US$20 million in seed funding at a valuation of US$150 million.
• The round was led by Accel and saw participation from Prosus Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and Nazara, among others.
• Kratos was built by Manish Agarwal, previously CEO of gaming company Nazara, and Ishank Gupta, a former executive at multinational firms like Belgian brewing firm Anheuser-Busch InBev.

• NVIDIA yesterday reported Q4 2022 revenues of $6.05 billion, in line with their forecast, down 21% from a year ago and up 2% sequentially.
• Interestingly, NVIDIA’s current downturn is playing out almost exactly like their previous downturn back in 2019 as can clearly be seen in the above chart.
• We expect to see this same recovery pattern continue throughout the remainder of 2023.