michaelxpettis

1/2 While the NYT may be right to say that “no company embodies China's deflationary moment quite like Pinduoduo”, I don't think the aggressive discounting companies like Pinduoduo encourage is in fact deflationary. https://www.nytimes.com/...

2024-10-07 View on X

New York Times

How Chinese e-commerce companies like Pinduoduo pushing to lower prices are making China's deflation worse; HSBC says ~60% of Chinese consumers use e-commerce

New York Times : X: @michaelxpettis and @michaelxpettis X: Michael Pettis / @michaelxpettis : 2/2 Their activity forces a compression of business profits in favor of expanding rea...

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2/2 Their activity forces a compression of business profits in favor of expanding real household income or, to say the same thing, a transfer of income from businesses to households. I suspect companies like Pinduoduo are more a consequence of deflation than a cause.

2024-10-07 View on X

New York Times

How Chinese e-commerce companies like Pinduoduo pushing to lower prices are making China's deflation worse; HSBC says ~60% of Chinese consumers use e-commerce

New York Times : X: @michaelxpettis and @michaelxpettis X: Michael Pettis / @michaelxpettis : 2/2 Their activity forces a compression of business profits in favor of expanding rea...

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1/8 China' private secret is suffering. Among other things, ""China used to be the best VC destination in the world after the US," says one Beijing-based executive, but “the industry has just died before our eyes. The entrepreneurial spirit is dead.” https://www.ft.com/...

2024-09-13 View on X

Financial Times

Sources paint a bleak picture for startup founders in China; IT Juzi report: only 1,202 startups were founded in the country in 2023 compared to 51,302 in 2018

Venture capital finance has dried up amid political and economic pressures, prompting a dramatic fall in new company formation X: @carnage4life , @tonytassell , @michaelxpettis , @...

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1/2 “A ferocious price war among China's e-commerce retailers during the ‘Singles Day’ shopping event is exposing further weakness in household consumption and raising concerns that the world's second-largest economy will resume its slowdown.” https://www.reuters.com/...

2023-11-13 View on X

Bloomberg

Alibaba and JD.com reported YoY sales increases for Singles Day, but neither company provided overall revenue figures for the event for the second straight year

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5/5 A top-down approach to technological innovation might generate most of the benefits of a bottom-up approach, with less waste and fraud, but perhaps not. It will be interesting to see if greater regulatory prudence can accommodate technological exuberance.

2023-10-30 View on X

Wall Street Journal

China's Foxconn investigation may backfire and cause tech suppliers, who now see that even Apple and its suppliers are not safe in China, to diversify quicker

China's investigation into top Apple supplier Foxconn could dilute the incentives for manufacturers to diversify away from the country slowly, rather than in a sprint

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4/5 I understand why Beijing is concerned about avoiding excesses in its own technological push, and it may succeed, but it may well also be the case that we cannot get the former without the latter. I wrote about this in 2009, republished here: https://carnegieendowment.org/ ...

2023-10-30 View on X

Wall Street Journal

China's Foxconn investigation may backfire and cause tech suppliers, who now see that even Apple and its suppliers are not safe in China, to diversify quicker

China's investigation into top Apple supplier Foxconn could dilute the incentives for manufacturers to diversify away from the country slowly, rather than in a sprint

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1/5 According to the FT, “the city's stock exchange, acting on guidance from regulators led by the CSRC, has set higher standards for listing applications this year, in what amounts to a radical reversal of China's approach to encouraging innovation.” https://www.ft.com/...

2023-10-30 View on X

Wall Street Journal

China's Foxconn investigation may backfire and cause tech suppliers, who now see that even Apple and its suppliers are not safe in China, to diversify quicker

China's investigation into top Apple supplier Foxconn could dilute the incentives for manufacturers to diversify away from the country slowly, rather than in a sprint

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5/5 A top-down approach to technological innovation might generate most of the benefits of a bottom-up approach, with less waste and fraud, but perhaps not. It will be interesting to see if greater regulatory prudence can accommodate technological exuberance.

2023-10-30 View on X

Financial Times

Analysis: 126 companies have cancelled or suspended IPO applications on Shanghai's tech-focused Star Market in 2023, more than the previous four years combined

Policy reversal leads to record number of listing applications pulled this year from tech-focused Star Market X: @michaelxpettis , @raywangtaiwan , @michaelxpettis , @michaelxpetti...

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4/5 I understand why Beijing is concerned about avoiding excesses in its own technological push, and it may succeed, but it may well also be the case that we cannot get the former without the latter. I wrote about this in 2009, republished here: https://carnegieendowment.org/ ...

2023-10-30 View on X

Financial Times

Analysis: 126 companies have cancelled or suspended IPO applications on Shanghai's tech-focused Star Market in 2023, more than the previous four years combined

Policy reversal leads to record number of listing applications pulled this year from tech-focused Star Market X: @michaelxpettis , @raywangtaiwan , @michaelxpettis , @michaelxpetti...

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1/5 According to the FT, “the city's stock exchange, acting on guidance from regulators led by the CSRC, has set higher standards for listing applications this year, in what amounts to a radical reversal of China's approach to encouraging innovation.” https://www.ft.com/...

2023-10-30 View on X

Financial Times

Analysis: 126 companies have cancelled or suspended IPO applications on Shanghai's tech-focused Star Market in 2023, more than the previous four years combined

Policy reversal leads to record number of listing applications pulled this year from tech-focused Star Market X: @michaelxpettis , @raywangtaiwan , @michaelxpettis , @michaelxpetti...

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Very interesting article on the political complexity of the chip manufacturing industry. “In the candid words of one executive from a leading Chinese chip company, ‘stealing technology from South Korea has become a trend here.’” https://www.ft.com/...

2023-06-26 View on X

Financial Times

A profile of Korean chip engineer Choi Jin-seok, who embarked on a quixotic mission to lead China's industry after his career stalled and faces IP theft charges

In 2006, a Korean engineer called Choi Jin-seok achieved a feat that earned him the nickname “master of semiconductor yield”.

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1/3 Because I've been devouring books and papers on financial history for over 30 years, I thought understood from fairly early on how risky the crypto space was and how likely to be filled with scammers and pyramid schemes. https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ

2022-11-21 View on X

Wall Street Journal

FTX says it has fired CTO Gary Wang, engineering director Nishad Singh, and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison

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Some are blaming problems in the chip industry on “a few corrupted officials”, but in fact this is systemic. You can't pour huge amounts of investment into a sector that is already flooded with capital and expect it to be productively invested. https://www.ft.com/...

2022-09-29 View on X

Financial Times

An investigation details China's crackdown on its $47B chip self-sufficiency “Big Fund”, including 12+ executives investigated or disappeared in three months

Financial Times : Tweets: @simonbchen , @michaelxpettis , and @edwardwhitenz Tweets: Simon Boyi Chen / @simonbchen : Corruption is inevitable when doing big business (or running a...

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1/5 At least Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is more self-aware than many of his peers: “When we were turning out big profits, I became somewhat delirious, and looking back at myself now, I am quite embarrassed and remorseful.” https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ

2022-08-09 View on X

Reuters

SoftBank reports a ~$17.23B loss for Vision Fund in Q1 2022, as the value of its tech portfolio fell, including SenseTime and Uber, after a record Q4 2021 loss

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1/5 At least Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is more self-aware than many of his peers: “When we were turning out big profits, I became somewhat delirious, and looking back at myself now, I am quite embarrassed and remorseful.” https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ

2022-08-08 View on X

Reuters

SoftBank reports a ~$17.23B loss for Vision Fund in Q1, as the value of its tech portfolio fell, including SenseTime and Uber, following a record Q4 loss

SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) on Monday posted a 2.33 trillion yen ($17.23 billion) loss at its Vision Fund unit in the April-June quarter as the value of its tech portfolio slid. S...

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1/2 A “small gym owner in Shanghai” said the prevalence of online borrowing, especially among the young, “has a lot to do with the macro economic environment. If people can receive their salaries, who would turn to online loans?” https://www.scmp.com/... via @scmpnews

2022-07-18 View on X

South China Morning Post

Despite China's scrutiny of online credit, smaller services have spread; iResearch: the microlending penetration rate grew from 0.4% in 2014 to 69.2% in 2021

Yaling Jiang / South China Morning Post : Tweets: @chinabeigebook and @michaelxpettis Tweets: @chinabeigebook : “Buy now, pay later” has taken root amongst young Chinese...#China'...

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Didi's many competitors are spending heavily to expand their shares of the ride-hailing market as Didi's share fell by 40%. This is temporarily very good for drivers and customers, but I wonder how good it might be for equity investors. https://www.ft.com/...

2021-09-16 View on X

Financial Times

Research: Didi's average daily users for August fell to 10.9M, from 15.6M in June, after its NYSE IPO triggered a fierce backlash by Chinese regulators

Ryan McMorrow / Financial Times : Tweets: @michaelxpettis Tweets: Michael Pettis / @michaelxpettis : Didi's many competitors are spending heavily to expand their shares of the rid...

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1/10 Interesting article. It quotes a Chinese analyst as saying: “Regulatory initiatives driven by common prosperity also raise operating costs, with the labour ministry now enforcing higher standards for gig-economy workers like delivery drivers.” https://www.ft.com/...

2021-08-27 View on X

Protocol

China calls the “996” work culture, a weekly schedule of six 12-hour work days popular among Chinese tech firms, a “serious violation” of labor law

The “996” work culture — a 12-hour, six-day work schedule that had been popular among Chinese tech companies until recently …

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From what I am hearing it is more general than this: Beijing wants to limit or eliminate all overseas IPOs for Chinese companies. https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ

2021-08-27 View on X

Wall Street Journal

Sources: China plans to propose rules that would ban companies with large amounts of sensitive consumer data from going public in the US

China's stock regulator plans to propose new rules that could thwart internet companies' plans to list in the U.S. — SINGAPORE—China plans to propose …

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We may be seeing the beginning of an attack on Chinese video game companies. If Beijing's policies can really reduce the amount of time people spend on these games, it will probably be a good thing for the economy even if it... https://www.ft.com/... via @financialtimes

2021-08-03 View on X

Wall Street Journal

After Chinese state media criticized online gaming as “opium for the mind” in a now-deleted article, Tencent announces stricter rules for young users

Shares of NetEase and Bilibili also suffer steep falls — Shares of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and rivals plummeted Tuesday …

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