The food-delivery space is heating up, as Uber acquires rival platform Postmates in a $2.65bn all-stock deal. The deal will help Uber in its push against rival and market incumbent DoorDash, and comes just weeks after Grubhub which, after snubbing the company, instead signed a deal with Just Eat. Uber’s share price rose 6.23% yesterday on the news.
China stocks soar
The Hang Seng Index officially entered a technical bull market yesterday after gaining 3.8%. Bullishness in China drove large gains across Asia, as the CSI 300 index rose 5.7%, the largest single-day jump since February, according to the Financial Times. This positivity was felt in Europe too, where markets climbed higher on Monday, and in the US, major indices looked buoyant.
- FTSE 100 – 6,285.94 (+2.09%)
- Dow Jones- 26,161.60 (+1.29%)
- S&P 500 – 3,172.54 (+1.36%)
- NASDAQ – 10,586.38 (+2.36%)
- Stoxx 600 – 370.98 (+1.52%)
- SSE Index – 3,332.88 (+5.71%)
Tesla’s rival – Nio’s stock performance
Electric car maker Tesla may have been hogging the headlines recently, but it is rival Nio that has seen the stronger share price performance in the last week, following a positive earnings beat.
Asia Pacific stocks come out on top
Around 180 stocks from emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region have been singled out from around 3,000 global stocks. They were cited by Bloomberg as top performers after returning on average 19% this year. A lot, perhaps expectedly, have ties to healthcare and are putting the likes of the MCSI All-Country World Index, down around 5% YTD, to shame.
Delivering alpha
Ocado’s share price has climbed 61.25% for the year to date (through 6 July), as the coronavirus pandemic drives demand upwards. However, it isn’t just the grocer’s delivery success that’s driving its share price, as the company has gained a lot of interest for its technology offering too. How this will help it against competitors in the food delivery space is still unsure.
Ad boycott hurts Facebook
The social media giant has seen its share price affected recently, after Diageo and Starbucks joined Coca-Cola, Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever in pulling advertising from the platform over how it had handled hate speech.
Hedge funds take a hit in 2020
In Q1, 304 hedge funds were liquidated — a five-year high, according to Ken Heinz, president of HFR. He told the Financial Times that this coincided with a “near historical low” of new hedge funds launching — only 84 in the first quarter. Investors, the publication suggests, steered clear of market entrants and stuck with well-known funds during the turmoil of the market crash.
Boohoo stock hit by exploitation allegations
The retailer’s share price dropped 18% over the weekend (to close on 6 July) after reports emerged of poor working conditions within its supply chain. An undercover reporter in a factory in Leicester said that social distancing measures were not in place and that staff were being paid less than half the minimum wage, Bloomberg reports. Boohoo reportedly lost more than a fifth of its value yesterday.
Hedging on a greener future
One of Europe’s largest hedge funds, Marshall Wace, has plans to raise $1bn for a new green fund, the Financial Times reports. In what is the latest of many shifts by the industry towards ESG — and potential profits it could provide — the focus of the fund will be trading stocks that have high environmental and ethical integrity, while betting against those that have poor ratings.
