Alibaba's lost treasure sends market value below Walmart

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. took its first name from the tale of a woodcutter who found treasure hidden by 40 thieves. Now the Chinese online retailer finds its market value dwindling, just as the thieves’ stash did in the story. Alibaba fell below the value of Walmart Inc., the world’s biggest retailer by sales, on Friday for the first time since August 2016. The reversal followed a 54% plunge in Alibaba’s value from a record $858.1 billion last October, before a Chinese government crackdown on technology-driven companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Lithium stocks

Electric vehicles (EVs) are upending the status quo of internal combustion vehicles. Fueling this shift to electric power requires next-generation battery technology and an ample supply of lithium, the key raw material for lithium-ion batteries.

 ETFs (avg daily vol)  

• LIT  Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (861K)

Stocks:

(by market cap)                        
Ticker  Company name Mkt Cap (USD)▼

1. ALB  Albemarle  28.20B; North Carolina
2. SQM  Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile  15.93B; Chile; world’s biggest lithium producer
3. LTHM   Livent  4.08B  Pennsylvania  ; subsidiary of FMC Corporation (FMC)
4. LAC  Lithium Americas   2.70B  Canada; previously knowns as Western Lithium; owns the Thacker Pass lithium project located in Humboldt County in northern Nevada
5. SLI  Standard Lithium  941.775M;  Vancouver, Canada
6. PLL  Piedmont Lithium Inc. 868.39M; North Carolina; previously known as WCP Resources; owns the Piedmont lithium project in North Carolina.  Piedmont Lithium will supply spodumene for Tesla electric cars for five years. Piedmont redomiciled to become a US corporation in May 2021 (previously based in Australia)
7. CBAT   CBAK Energy Technology  246.67M; China; manufacturer of lithium batteries 
8. WWR  Westwater Resources 127.07M; lithium and graphite; Colorado; formerly known as Uranium Resources (NASDAQ:URRE)

finviz charts (ave vol - 3 MONTHS, new window): https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=211&t=ALB,SQM,LTHM,LAC,SLI,PLL,CBAT,WWR&ta=0&o=-averagevolume

       

©Artremis / EAS (9/10/21)

The DAX 30 will become the DAX 40 in September 2021

German carmaker Porsche and sportswear maker Puma will join the nation's premier DAX stock index, as it expands to 40 from 30 companies in the biggest overhaul of its 33-year history, the exchange operator Deutsche Börse said on Friday, Sept. 3. 2021.

 

The DAX 30 is Germany’s flagship index, representing 30 of the country’s largest companies by market capitalisation. But following an announcement by the exchange operator Deutsche Boerse in 2020, it is set to become even larger when it switches to the DAX 40, incorporating ten of the largest companies from Germany’s MDAX listing.

The decision was made in conjunction with a set of further reforms to the German index, such as the toughening of corporate governance rules, following an accounting scandal at payment processing company and former DAX 30 constituent Wirecard.

Index additions

Potential additions to the index include aerospace giant Airbus SE, e-commerce operator Zalando, and global reinsurance group Hannover Rueck SE, with other likely additions including property company LEG Immobilien and Siemens Energy.

Components of the DAX 30 as of September 21, 2020.

Selection criteria change

While previously the DAX 30 considered stock exchange turnover for its rankings, now index members will be considered for liquidity levels instead.

New members will have to demonstrate the usual market capitalisation credentials, but now they must prove their profitability over their two most recent annual financial statements. This has implications for companies similar to Delivery Hero, which replaced Wirecard in the DAX 30 despite having never recorded a profit. Under the new rules, Delivery Hero would not be eligible.

How might the DAX 40 impact traders?

As mentioned, the expansion of the DAX 40 will mean more companies, more sectors, and the potential for revised weighting. This may mean giants such as software company SAP, which currently has the largest weighting in the index, may exert less influence over the DAX’s moves once the changes come in.

Fintech stocks

Financial technology or “fintech” are new products or services that can change the way the financial sector works. 

The companies leading this innovation are focused on improving: 

•  Blockchain Technology 
• Transactions 
• Customer Facing Platforms 
• Funding Platforms 
• New Intermediaries 
• Loan Origination

Fintech thematic ETFs:

ARKF Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF)

Global X FinTech ETF (FINX)

ETFMG Prime Mobile Payments (IPAY)

Tortoise Digital Payments Infrastructure Fund (TPAY)

1. SQ  Square  ; mobile payment company founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, Jim McKelvey, and the late Tristian O’Tierney. Cash App has more than 55 million users in the U.S. alone. Starting in November 2017, users could begin buying and selling Bitcoin on the Cash App.
2. PYPL  PayPal  ; digital payments; PayPal’s version of the Cash App is “Venmo,” which is the largest peer-to-peer payment application and digital wallet in the U.S. Venmo launched in 2009, giving it a first-mover advantage over Square’s Cash App. PayPal founders (Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman) are often referred to as the “PayPal Mafia.” 
3. MELI MercadoLibre  ; Argentine company that operates online marketplaces dedicated to e-commerce and online. The company’s main market is Brazil
4. V  Visa ; Partnered with Square to launch their Cash Card; partnered wit Amazon (AMZN) to launch its Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card. Partnered with crypto company BlockFi to launch the first bitcoin rewards credit card.
5. MA  Mastercard  ; revealed that it is applying the latest quantum-resistant technologies to develop the next generation of contactless payments. Mastercard partnered with Apple and Goldman Sachs to launch the Apple Card in August 2019.
6. SOFI SoFi  ; Social Finance, or SoFi, is a mobile-first service that provides a suite of financial products that includes student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, credit cards, investing and banking. SoFi was the acquisition target for Chamath Palihapitiya’s fifth special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and went public in January 2021.
7. AFRM Affirm ;  enables its users, to pay for a purchase over time instead of one upfront payment. More tan 6.2 million users. Thousands of stores offer Affirm as a payment option at checkout, such as Peloton, Caspar, Adidas, and Walmart.
8. COIN Coinbase ; largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S.with more than 43 million users. 
9. Robinhood
10. Z Zillow ; An American online real estate database company founded in 2006 by former Microsoft executives Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink. 36 million unique monthly visitors.
11. Stripe  ; payment processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications. Founded in 2009 by Irish-born brothers John and Patrick Collison. Stripe has been called the internet’s “toll collector” – the company charges a swipe fee of 2.9%, plus 30 cents for every transaction it processes. IPO in 2021??

Electric cars: Rivian

Rivian is an American manufacturer of electric vehicles. 

• Founder & CEO: RJ Scaringe (2009–) 
• Founded: 2009 
• Headquarters: Plymouth, Michigan
• More than 3,600 employees split across offices in Michigan and California and its production facility in Illinois.
• Privately held company (Limited liability company)
• The startup was valued at $27.6 billion in a funding round in January.
• The Rivian IPO is expected to occur in late 2021/early 2022. On September 1, the company filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to become a publicly traded company.
  
• Current investors in the electric-vehicle startup include Amazon, Ford, T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Soros Fund Management and Fidelity.
• Rivian has a deal with Amazon to build 100,000 custom electric delivery vans by 2030. 
• https://rivian.com/

The R1T is an all-new model from Rivian, and the company says it'll start delivering to customers in June 2021. It kicks off with a Launch Edition that starts at $75,000.

The truck will be sold directly to consumers, although Rivian says that it also will set up a network of service centers and Tesla-like stores. Going on sale soon after the R1T truck will be the R1S, a seven-passenger SUV with similar specs.

The company has retrofitted a former Mitsubishi Motors plant in Normal, Illinois, where it also plans to build the EV delivery van for Amazon.

Electric 2021 Rivian R1T

Founder Robert "RJ" Scaringe

He grew up in Melbourne, Florida, and has a doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab.

 

Rivian's assembly plant in Normal, Illinois

U.S. bonds fall out of sync with record-setting S&P 500

Signals from the U.S. bond market indicate the S&P 500 Index is due for “a reset,” according to Steven Vannelli, chief investment officer of Knowledge Leaders Capital LLC. Vannelli, also the firm’s founder and chief executive, raised the issue in a blog post Thursday. 

He cited gaps in yield between investment-grade and high-yield debt and U.S. Treasuries, as compiled by Bloomberg. Both spreads widened because of falling bond prices since early July, while the S&P 500 set records repeatedly. There have been 49 new highs this year.

Electric cars : News

In 2020, Europe replaced China as the biggest market of EVs. Europe registered over 1.4 million new electric cars in 2020, followed by China with 1.2 million. Overall, global electric car sales rose in 2020, despite the pandemic-related restrictions. In the U.S., consumers spent over $120 billion on electric car purchases in 2020, presenting a 50% growth from 2019.

• 28 Sept 2021: Ford Motor (F) to invest $11.4 bln to develop electric vehicle campuses, creating 11K new jobs.  Ford is announcing plans to bring electric vehicles at scale to American customers with two new massive, environmentally and technologically advanced campuses in Tennessee and Kentucky that will produce the next generation of electric F-Series trucks and the batteries to power future electric Ford and Lincoln vehicles.
• 22 Sept 2021: Ford Motor (F) and startup Redwood Materials said on Wednesday they are partnering to form a "closed loop" or circular supply chain for electric vehicle batteries, from raw materials to recycling.
• 16 Sept 2021:  Ford Motor (F) begins pre-production of all-electric F-150 Lightning truck. Ford confirmed construction of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center a year ago as part of an initial $700 million investment in the historic Ford Rouge Center, creating a manufacturing home for the F-150 Lightning. Now Ford's pre-production F-150 Lightning trucks are leaving the factory for real-world testing, with the truck available to customers next spring.
• 1 Sep 2021: Xpeng (XPEV) reports August deliveries increased 172% yr/yr.  In August, XPeng delivered 7,214 Smart EVs, representing a 172% increase year-over-year. Deliveries in August consisted of 6,165 P7s, the Company's sports smart sedan, and 1,049 G3s, its smart compact SUV.  2021 year-to-date deliveries reached 45,992 vehicles, representing a 334% increase year-over-year. P7 deliveries continued to strengthen, achieving a record month in August and a 209% increase year-over-year.
• 1 Sep 2021:  NIO reports August deliveries increased 48.3% yr/yr. NIO delivered 5,880 vehicles in August 2021, representing a 48.3% year-over-year growth. While the Company's new order reached an all-time high in August driven by the increasing demand, the vehicle production, especially the manufacturing of the ES6 and EC6, was materially disrupted by supply chain constraints resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in certain areas in China and Malaysia. The deliveries consisted of 1,738 ES8s, the Company's six-seater or seven-seater flagship premium smart electric SUV, 2,342 ES6s, the Company's five-seater high-performance premium smart electric SUV, and 1,800 EC6s, the Company's five-seater premium smart electric coupe SUV. As of August 31, 2021, cumulative deliveries of the ES8, ES6 and EC6 reached 131,408 vehicles.
• 1 Sep 2021:  Li Auto (LI) reports August deliveries increased 248% yr/yr. Co announced that the Company delivered 9,433 Li ONEs in August 2021, increasing 248.0% year over year and 9.8% month over month, breaking the Company's monthly delivery record again. Total deliveries in the first eight months of 2021 and cumulative deliveries of Li ONEs reached 48,176 and 81,773 respectively.
• 5 Aug 2021: Ford Motor (F) confirms that it expects to be well positioned to have fully electric vehicles account for 40 to 50% of its US sales by 2030.
• 15 July 2021: The EU unveiled plans to effectively ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
• July 2021: Chinese companies posted record sales of electric cars. Li Auto Inc. (NASDAQ: LI) sold over 8,589 cars in July, showing a 251% year-over-year growth. Similarly, XPeng Inc. (NYSE: XPEV) also managed to deliver more than 8,000 cars in the same month.
• 17 May 2021: Canoo (GOEV) opened its reservations and is taking preorders: Starting today, the lifestyle vehicle, MPDV and pickup truck can be reserved in the United States, with a $100 deposit per vehicle at www.canoo.com/reservations. The Lifestyle Vehicle will be the first vehicle to market in 2022, and has targeted pricing starting from $34,750 -$49,950i for Delivery, Base and Premium models, before incentives, or optional equipment. Deliveries for the Pickup Truck and scaled production for MPDV are scheduled to begin as early as 2023.
• 15 May 2021: Ford (F) hosts an event to reveal the all-electric F-150 Lightning. The automaker says the F-150 Lightning will bring stunning innovation, technologies and capabilities to the popular F-Series, without sacrificing power, payload and towing capability. Production of the F-150 Lightning begins next spring at the company's Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center.
• 26 Jan 2021: CarParts.com (PRTS)  Announced its launch of a new dedicated shopping hub for the hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicle community; the hub will also feature news, guides, blog content, and maintenance insight for the community.
• Dec 2020, Tesla: Despite the impact of the pandemic, Tesla produced and delivered half a million EVs in 2020. It ended the year by finally getting included in the S&P 500 Index after five profitable quarters. Deliveries of Model Y that is being produced in Shanghai's Gigafactory are expected to begin shortly. Tesla Cybertruck, Semi, and Roadster are due to be launched this year. Tesla's revenue increased 45.3 percent to $8.77 billion in Q3 2020. Its non-GAAP net income increased 155.5 percent YoY to $874 million, while its EPS rose 105.4% from last year's $0.76. 
• 19 Nov 2020: General Motors (GM) announced more aggressive plans to pivot toward electric cars as it accelerates efforts to challenge Tesla (TSLA). GM stock rose. The No. 1 U.S. automaker now plans to spend $27 billion on electric cars and autonomous vehicles through 2025, up from a prior target of $20 billion. Also by 2025, GM plans to launch 30 electric cars around the world, with two-thirds of them available in the U.S. Previously, it planned at least 20 new models by 2023.
• The Lyriq, Cadillac's first all-electric vehicle, which will arrive in Q1 2022, nine months ahead of its prior schedule.
• 19 Nov 2020: GM will develop two electric cars for Honda (HMC) using the Ultium platform and anticipates others will want to license the new proprietary battery technology. The Ultium will allow electric cars to go 400 miles on a single charge, GM has said. That would top Tesla's projected range of 322 miles for its Model 3 sedan.
• 16 Nov 2020: Lordstown Motors (RIDE) released updates on commercial, operational, and strategic developments; as a highlight among those updates, co indicated that it remains on track to begin production of its full-size, all-electric pickup truck, the Lordstown Endurance, in September 2021, with full production ramping through 2022. Co has received approx. 50,000 non-binding production reservations from commercial fleets for the Lordstown Endurance.
• 2 Nov 2020: NIO reports October deliveries increased 100% yr/yr. NIO delivered 5,055 vehicles in October 2020, a new monthly record representing a strong 100.1% year-over-year growth. The deliveries consisted of 2,695 ES6s, the Company's 5-seater high-performance premium smart electric SUV, 1,477 ES8s, the Company's 6-seater and 7-seater flagship premium smart electric SUV, and 883 EC6s, the Company's 5-seater premium electric coupe SUV. NIO delivered 31,430 vehicles in 2020 in total, representing an increase of 111.4% year-over-year. As of October 31, 2020, cumulative deliveries of the ES8, ES6 and EC6 reached 63,343 vehicles.
• 2 Nov 2020: Li Auto (LI) reports deliveries of 3,692 Li ONEs in October, representing a steady increase compared to September.
• 2 Nov 2020: Xpeng Inc (XPEV) reports October deliveries increased 229% yr/yr to 3040 vehicles. XPeng delivered a total of 3,040 Smart EVs in October 2020, consisting of 2,104 P7s, the Company's smart sports sedan, and 936 G3s, its smart compact SUV. The Company's October deliveries represented a 229% increase year-over-year. As of October 31, 2020, year-to-date deliveries of the Company's Smart EVs reached 17,117 units, representing a 64% increase year-over-year.
• 10/26/20: DiamondPeak Holdings Corp (DPHC) completes business combination with Lordstown Motors; starts trading on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol "RIDE".
• 10/10/20: Renault (OTC:RNSDF) is expected to unveil a new electric SUV concept alongside the production version of the Dacia Spring next week. The French automaker is charging in late with a strong electrification push.
• August 2020: The Lucid Air is slated to be revealed on Sept. 9, 2020. Lucid expects to achieve a driving range of about 500 miles per charge.
• August 2020: The Nikkei Asian Review reported that Panasonic (6752.Japan) will invest another $100 million in its joint-venture Tesla (TSLA) Gigafactory in Nevada. The report says plant capacity will rise about 10%, to 39 gigawatt-hours year.  A 39 gigawatt-hour a year plant can make 39,000,000 kilowatt-hours of batteries, or enough to power 400,000 to 500,000 EVs.
• August 2020: Nikola (NKLA) is designing a pickup truck called Badger to get 600 miles of range through a combination of a battery pack and a hydrogen fuel cell to power its electric motors. It’s a little like having a portable generator on board.

• When trying to compare the efficiency of battery power versus gasoline engines, the discussion around miles per gallon gets a little strange. The EPA is the entity converting values for U.S. drivers, and the agency decided that about 34 kilowatt-hours of energy is the same as a gallon of gas. So an EV that goes 100 miles using 34 kWh gets about 100 miles per gallon.
• June 2020: Volkswagen (OTCPK:VWAGY) is scheduled to start taking binding orders for its "first edition" ID.3 electric car at a list price of €40K ($45.5K). The German automaker expects to start making some European deliveries in September and sending out full-featured ID.3s by the end of the year as the company's broad goal to be a mass EV producer accelerates. EV buzz is picking up in general after Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) crossed the $1,000 per share threshold and Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) soared in its public debut. Investors also have been putting a charge into EV-related stocks like Electrameccanica Vehicles (NASDAQ:SOLO), Arcimoto (NASDAQ:FUV), Workhorse Group (NASDAQ:WKHS), Kandi Technologies (NASDAQ:KNDI) and Nio (NYSE:NIO), Aptiv (NYSE:APTV), Delphi Technologies (NYSE:DLPH) and to name a few. Of course, chipmakers like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Maxim Integrated Products (NASDAQ:MXIM), NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ:NXPI) and TE Connectivity (NYSE:TEL) also benefit from the increased focus on EVs.
• September 2019: Michigan-based Rivian Automotive landed an order from Amazon to purchase as many as 100,000 electric delivery vans over the next decade, with the first ones showing up on the road in 2021.
• Jan 7, 2019 Shanghai:  Tesla (TSLA) broke ground on its Chinese Gigafactory where it plans to mass-produce Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles. "We think with the resources here we can build the Shanghai Gigafactory in record time and we’re looking forward to hopefully having some initial production of the Model 3 towards the end of this year and achieving volume production next year," Elon Musk stated at the event. The local Gigafactory is the first wholly-owned car plant in China operated by a foreign company. 
• Jan 2018: Tesla (TSLA) has started to roll out its all-electric Model 3 vehicles, while Volvo last year announced plans to phase out gas-only cars and launch new electric and hybrid vehicles in 2019.
• Dec 2017:  Panasonic is considering jointly developing batteries for electric vehicles with Toyota (NYSE:TM), a move that would cement its position as the world's leading producer of automotive batteries. Panasonic (OTCPK:PCRFF) already supplies lithium-ion assemblies for Toyota's hybrid vehicles, but has also carved out a name for itself as the major battery supplier to Tesla (TSLA).
• July 2017:  Toyota (NYSE:TM) is working on an electric car with improved driving range and a fast-charging battery. The Japanese automaker is expected to build the new EV on a new platform and use solid-state batteries that can be recharged in minutes. The new model could arrive as early as 2022.  Other automakers such as BMW are also working on developing all-solid-state batteries, eyeing mass production in the next 10 years.
• March 2015:  Mercedes is launching its first plug-in hybrid-electric midsize sedan, the C350e, in U.S. dealerships in September 2015, according to reports. Chatter on the street suggests that the German auto-making powerhouse plans to deeply undercut Tesla stickers, with a price around $42,000 before $5,250 worth of federal and state incentives. The 85 kWh Tesla starts at twice that level. And the brash young automaker will not have a competitive product until at least 2017. Mercedes can undercut the pricing because it has a lot more experience at mass production and sourcing; will make the car in low-cost Alabama instead of high-cost California; and it can subsidize the vehicle with its other vehicles, just to gain market share. The market for electrics is growing dramatically; this is just the start.