Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1570
Ali’s market value rebounded by 100 billion yuan in 10 days
What kind of news is Ma Yun’s return to China? The impact on Alibaba will not be too great. In the last 10 trading days, Alibaba’s market value rebounded by nearly 100 billion yuan, but today’s stock price fell.
Jack Ma retired in 2018. Alibaba is the largest Internet company in China, and its biggest competitors are JD.com and Pinduoduo. At that time, each of them encountered quite big problems. Tencent, which supports these e-commerce companies and competes with Ali in other fields, has encountered a sudden game crisis.
Five years later, Alibaba is one of China’s largest Internet companies, and its market value lags behind Tencent. E-commerce and the extended local life business are quite embarrassing in the competition with Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Meituan. In the fourth quarter of last year, Alibaba’s total revenue increased slightly by 2%, but the most important domestic advertising and e-commerce commission revenue decreased by 9% year-on-year to 91.344 billion yuan. During the same period, the online physical transactions of Taobao and Tmall were in the middle of the year. The number dropped.
In fact, the entire industry is at a relatively embarrassing time. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the total revenue of Chinese Internet companies will drop by 1% in 2022, the first contraction in the past 10 years. The private business climate index compiled by the Bureau of Statistics on a quarterly basis also dropped significantly last year.
Retired Hu Xijin said that Ma Yun’s appearance in China should not have been news, but the attention was due to the topic of the private economy behind it. During the two sessions this month, the State Council also talked about supporting the development of private enterprises. According to People’s Daily, Premier Li Qiang said at the time:
- “Two unwavering” is an important content of my country’s basic economic system, and it is a long-term policy. It has not changed in the past, and it will not change in the future.
- The development environment of the private economy will be better and better, and the development space will be bigger and bigger.
- The era calls for the majority of private entrepreneurs to write a new history of entrepreneurship.
The Central Economic Work Conference at the end of last year proposed to vigorously develop the digital economy and improve the level of normalized supervision. Support platform enterprises to show their talents in leading development, creating jobs, and competing internationally. This was the first time that China’s highest-level economic work conference mentioned platform companies after a year. (Gong Fangyi)
Confidence in the international banking system is in question
After Credit Suisse was bailed out by the Swiss government, investors worried that Deutsche Bank could be the next bank to fail. Some analysts said that “we are still waiting for another domino to fall, and Deutsche Bank is obviously the next domino in everyone’s mind.”
Deutsche Bank is the largest bank in Germany. As of the end of last year, its total assets were about 1.3 trillion euros. It has more than 80,000 employees in 58 countries and regions around the world. It not only provides commercial banking services such as deposits and loans, but also provides mergers and acquisitions for large institutions. Or stock and bond trading advice.
At the same time, it is also one of the global systemically important banks. Systemically important banks (SIBs) are banks whose activities have an impact on the stability of the banking system as a whole. They are also known as “too big to fail” banks. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) publishes the list annually based on a set of assessment methodologies. Deutsche Bank is one of 30 banks on the 2022 list.
According to the importance of these banks and the additional capital buffer required, SIB divides them into five grades. The higher the grade, the higher the capital buffer requirement (1.0%-3.5%), and the stronger the expected resilience of the bank.
- Credit Suisse, UBS, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Morgan Stanley and other 19 banks belong to the first tier with the lowest capital buffer requirements.
- Deutsche Bank is in the second tier, with the same level of global systemic importance as the seven banks including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, and Goldman Sachs.
- There are 3 banks in the third tier, Bank of America, Citibank, and HSBC.
- There is only one company in the fourth tier, JPMorgan Chase.
- Fifth gear is vacant.
In 2017, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $7.2 billion fine to the United States to settle allegations that its “irresponsible lending practices partially caused the recession” between 2006 and 2007.
Last year, Deutsche Bank achieved revenue of 22.6 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of about 5%, cash in hand of about 178.8 billion euros, and liabilities to customer deposits of about 629.1 billion euros. (Gong Fangyi)
We arranged another “dialogue” between Wenxinyiyan and GPT-4
Baidu today changed the original Wenxin Yiyan related service conference to a closed-door communication meeting. Although it has faced many doubts since its release, Baidu said that Wenxin Large Model has received 120,000 applications from companies for testing. This communication meeting is a technical exchange with the first batch of invited testing companies. Baidu expects to hold similar communication in many places meeting.
According to Titanium Media reports, Baidu released the enterprise-level large-scale model platform “Wenxin Qianfan” at today’s communication meeting. The usage scenarios include government affairs, finance, corporate office, e-commerce, travel services, etc. The API fee standard is about OpenAI GPT- 1/20th of 4.
What about the capabilities of the two models? According to Robin Li, the gap between Wenxinyiyan and ChatGPT is about one or two months. On March 16, the night when Wenxin Yiyan was released, we asked New Bing embedded in GPT-4 to “interview” Wenxin Yiyan. Some readers left messages in the background to see how GPT-4 answered these questions. Due to space limitations, today we have selected a few issues that are discussed more in the background for comparison.
The first is the micro-romance novel that demands surprises and reversals. This is Wen Xin Yi Yan’s version more than ten days ago:
Here’s today’s answer:
Here’s New Bing’s answer:
Then came the literary creation question about the dialogue between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. Before Wen Xin said a word, he gave a sentence in the style of “Xinhua Dictionary”:
Today’s new answer is completely out of the background of the story:
New Bing’s answer is also out of context, and the word count:
But let’s try switching to the more creative New Bing:
In the mathematical logic part, I was reminded by a message in the background that New Bing had asked a wrong question about “Who is lying” before, but there was actually no correct answer because the question was wrong.
I didn’t understand the meaning of the question when I first published it:
Today’s Wen Xin Yiyan has actually drawn contradictory conclusions, but failed to further point out the error in the title itself:
New Bing’s answer, a single-line conclusion, also did not realize that the question itself was wrong:
Finally, we also gave Wen Xinyiyan the opportunity to write exam questions for GPT-4. Wen Xin first wrote a line of garbled characters:
After regenerating, you get a Turing test question:
As far as the question is concerned, it is a very clever question, which successfully stumped New Bing who had no execution ability (but the question stem is still flawed. It is impossible for all three of them to take out only one coin. This sentence is redundant and disturbing).
But when we went back to ask Wenxin a word, it fell into the trap set by itself (ignoring the last requirement of the question), and reasoned out the wrong answer solemnly:
Then we tried to delete the restriction on the answering method at the end of the original question, and New Bing finally gave the correct answer:
What CEOs who visited China recently said
This past weekend, nearly 70 CEOs and other high-level executives of multinational companies gathered in Beijing to participate in the China Development Forum. In addition to Apple, the world’s largest technology company, there are Procter & Gamble, Unilever, BMW, Siemens, Pfizer, Blackstone Group, Kering Group, Saudi Aramco, Maersk, etc., all of which are leaders in their respective fields. Most of them invest in China and benefit from China.
Apple is caught in a dispute over the transfer of production lines. Its CEO Cook talked about how Apple and China grow together at the forum. He said that for Apple, China is both a manufacturing center and a fast-growing consumer market. “This is what we both want to see.” It forms a symbiotic relationship”. About one-fifth of Apple’s revenue came from China last year (about $82.6 billion), and about 98% of iPhones are currently manufactured in China.
Oliver Zipse, chairman of BMW, said that “the word partner carries the gist of my speech.” He introduced BMW’s investment in China. In addition to the production base, it also established the largest R&D center outside Germany in China. Last year, 30% of BMW’s sales came from China, and the revenue in the Chinese market increased by more than 60% to 41.9 billion euros.
Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, only accounts for single-digit revenues in the Chinese market. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla talked more about future development. He introduced the progress of oncology drugs in cooperation with a Suzhou company, saying that more effective cancer treatment methods are currently personal needs. He also mentioned that pharmaceutical innovation requires a good regulatory environment to allow innovative products to enter the market efficiently and fairly.
Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said that the Chinese market is becoming more and more important, and that it is paying close attention to demand to allow more advanced products to enter China. Nestlé has set the Chinese market as an independent region since 2021. At that time, Schneider mentioned that although the Greater China region is the smallest of the five regions, Nestlé is very optimistic about its prospects and will fully invest in the Chinese market (All in). Last year, Nestle’s revenue in Greater China was 36.2 billion yuan, accounting for about 5.7%.
The China Development Forum is held every two years, and the Chinese representatives cover the political, business and academic circles. This year’s theme is “Economic Recovery: Opportunities and Cooperation”. (Lin Guangying)
Tobacco and alcohol manufacturing companies profit rebound
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the profits of industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 22.9% year-on-year in January-February this year. Among them, among the 14 sub-sectors of the consumer goods manufacturing industry, the tobacco products, alcoholic beverages and tea industries recovered the fastest, with both revenue and profits increasing year-on-year. Profits in other industries declined to varying degrees.
Some industries are facing cost pressures. The revenue of the agricultural and sideline food and food manufacturing industries increased, but because the costs rose faster, the profits fell instead, reflecting that it was difficult for companies to pass on the rising costs to consumers. In the textile, paper and paper products industries, revenues fell faster than costs, and profits fell by 37% and 52% respectively.
The slow recovery in demand is another main reason. The operating costs of the furniture manufacturing industry have eased in the first two months of this year, but the revenue has dropped by 15.7%, and the total profit has dropped by more than 20%. This partly reflects the softness in the real estate market some time ago. However, according to the Bureau of Statistics, China’s furniture retail sales increased by 5.2% year-on-year during the same period, which was the first time since the end of 2021 that it became positive. Whether it improves in the short term remains to be seen.
The profits of the automobile manufacturing industry in January and February fell by 41.7% year-on-year. Among them, the revenue decreased by 6.2% to 1,284.7 billion yuan, and the profit margin decreased by 2.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year. It reflects the intensified competition among car companies under weak demand.
Automobiles are often seen as the hope of boosting consumption and industry. Automobile retail accounts for about 10% or more of social consumer retail sales all year round, and the number of employees in auto-related industries nationwide accounts for more than one-sixth. However, due to the increase in subsidies in the second half of last year, car companies have promoted promotions to boost sales, and released demand in advance, it may take a while for car consumption to pick up this year. (Lin Guangying)
Know it later丨Domino’s China went public this week, and continued to expand amidst continuous losses
There are at least 2 IPOs for A shares this week.
- United Water: A water company with 26 branches in 9 provinces including Jiangsu and Hubei. In 2019, United Water expanded its overseas business for the first time, and jointly invested, constructed and operated a water supply project in Dhaka, the capital of the country, with a Bangladeshi company. It closed up 44.03% today.
- Keruisi: Manufacturer of fully automatic winding equipment. With the self-developed automatic winding equipment, Keruisi provides customers with winding services for small magnetic ring coils. This equipment can replace the traditional manual winding mode and reduce labor costs. Its business is mainly aimed at manufacturers of magnetic components that produce network transformers and power inductors, and are ultimately used in network communications, consumer electronics and other fields.
There are at least 4 IPOs in Hong Kong stocks this week.
- Dashi Shares: Domino’s Pizza franchisee in China. From 2020 to 2022, Dashi shares will continue to expand its stores amid continuous losses, and the number of its stores will increase from 268 to 588. As of the end of 2022, 312 Domino’s stores in Beijing and Shanghai will contribute most of Dashi’s revenue. With the increase in the number of stores in other cities, Dashi’s dependence on the Beijing and Shanghai markets will gradually weaken. According to the plan, Dashi will continue to expand at an average annual rate of adding more than 200 stores from 2023 to 2026.
- Intercontinental Shipping: China’s largest ship management service company and the fifth largest shipping company will become the “No. 1 ship management stock” in Hong Kong stocks. The main business of Intercontinental Shipping includes shipping services, fleet operations and ship management. Although the company has a relatively high market position in the field of ship management, shipping services are its main source of revenue, accounting for more than 80%.
- Zhongtian Hunan Group: A general contracting construction group seeking listing for the fifth time. From 2019 to 2021 and the first three quarters of 2022, Zhongtian Hunan Group’s borrowing amount will be at least 65.6 million yuan, and the maximum will reach 143 million yuan. During the same period, its operating cash flow continued to decline, and it faced greater financial pressure.
- Limeng Technology: China’s fourth largest cross-border digital marketing service provider. As of September 30, 2022, Limeng Technology is planning and cooperating with 19 global publishers including Google, Twitter, and TikTok, providing services to about 1,900 companies, and the main customers are from e-commerce, games and applications and other industries.
There were at least 7 IPOs in US stocks this week.
- Global Murphy: China digital asset operation company. The company was engaged in visual effects production in the early days, and many company executives came from the film special effects production company Industrial Light and Magic. Currently, Universal Murphy mainly provides virtual technology development and production, virtual digital asset operation, virtual human development and operation, and virtual digital marketing. Its clients include Huawei, PepsiCo China and L’Oreal. It plans to raise USD 6 million.
- Ispire: A Chinese e-cigarette company whose main products are tobacco e-cigarettes and marijuana e-cigarettes. The main markets of Ispire’s e-cigarette brand Aspire are Europe and North America, with a global distributor network of more than 150 distributors. It plans to raise US$24 million.
- Trio Petroleum: A California oil and gas exploration and development company established in 2021 that has not yet generated any operating income. The company is mainly engaged in acquisition, investment, operation and development related to oil and gas exploration and development, and plans to raise US$6 million.
- Elephant Petroleum: An independent oil and gas exploration and development company focusing on Africa. The company currently has onshore exploration licenses in two countries, Benin and Namibia, and has yet to generate any revenue. It plans to raise US$8.5 million.
- George Chanson: Xinjiang Bread Baking Company. George Chanson has 29 branches in Xinjiang and 2 branches in New York. In the next five years, it will add 3 to 5 stores in China and 10 stores in the United States. It plans to raise US$22.5 million.
- Zhongjin Medical Equipment: Chinese wheelchair manufacturer. Zhongjin Medical Equipment is mainly engaged in the research and development and manufacture of high-end rehabilitation equipment. Its products have been purchased by large-scale events such as the Olympic Games and the World Expo, and its products have been exported to Japan, the United States, the European Union and other countries and regions. It plans to raise USD 10.625 million.
- Xitu Group: Chinese paper packaging manufacturer. Xitu Group has two production factories in Guangdong and a supply chain service department in Vietnam. It mainly produces paper inner packaging boxes and corrugated cardboard outer packaging boxes. Its customers are mainly located in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It plans to raise USD 8 million. (Intern Chang Junfei)
OTHER NEWS
The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation issued new tax incentives for small and micro enterprises and self-employed individuals.
The two departments announced that for small and low-profit enterprises whose annual taxable income does not exceed 1 million yuan, corporate income tax shall be paid at a rate of 20% (the regular tax rate is 25%); , On the basis of the preferential policies in advance, the collection of personal income tax will be halved.
Yiwu’s export price index rose to its second highest level on record.
According to the data released by Yiwu Small Commodity Index Network, its export price index last week (as of March 26) recorded 107.22, which has risen to the second highest since records were kept in September 2006. The main reasons for the price increase are the rise in production costs and the recovery of foreign passenger flow and export orders. According to data from Yiwu Customs, about 800 trucks pass through customs every day, which is twice the average level in February. Caixin reports that traffic to Yiwu’s local night market is also on the rise.
Due to the large scale of exports and the sensitivity to market reactions, Yiwu’s exports are often regarded as a barometer of China’s foreign trade economy. The relevant index has local characteristics, there are many seasonal commodities, and the representative commodities are often changed. For example, as the weather gets warmer recently, European and American customers place orders for camping products earlier than in previous years, and orders have increased significantly, and related products are ushering in a peak export season.
Hong Kong International Airport handled 2.1 million passengers in February, the same as in January.
The year-on-year increase was about 24 times, and compared with the average passenger traffic of 2.4 million/month in the second half of 2019, it has recovered nearly 90%. The growth in traffic to and from Southeast Asia and Japan was most pronounced. However, as the global macro economy is still uncertain, in the first two months of this year, the cargo volume of China Hong Kong International Airport fell by nearly 13% year-on-year to 578,000 tons.
The second phase of the chip fund restarted investment.
Electronic chemicals manufacturer Jingrui Electric Materials announced that its shareholding subsidiary Hubei Jingrui intends to introduce strategic investors, of which the second phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund will increase its capital by 160 million yuan. Affected by this news, the stock price of Jingrui Electric Materials rose by 20% today, and drove the rise of the entire photoresist sector (Jingrui is also one of the top photoresist companies in China). This is also the first investment project of the second phase of the big fund after the coaching change. From the perspective of existing investment destinations, compared with the first phase, which is more focused on manufacturing, packaging and testing, and design, the second phase of the big fund is leaning towards the more upstream equipment and materials fields.
Petroleum mining makes money, and downstream chemicals lose money. Sinopec’s profit fell last year.
Sinopec’s revenue in 2022 will be 3.32 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%, but its net profit will fall by 7% to 66.3 billion yuan. On the one hand, due to the increase in the volume and price of oil and gas products, the upstream exploration and production business revenue increased by 10 times year-on-year. However, also affected by rising oil prices and weakening demand for chemicals (rubber, plastics, etc.), the operating income of the mid-stream and downstream oil refining business fell by 80% year-on-year, and the operating loss of the chemical business was 14.1 billion yuan. Sinopec said that international oil prices are expected to fluctuate at mid-to-high levels this year, and domestic demand for natural gas, refined oil, and chemical products will grow rapidly.
Qatar Airways increases the number of flights between Doha and China.
Qatar Airways announced on March 26 that the daily round-trip flight between Beijing and Doha has officially resumed, and the number of other Doha flights to and from China will also increase. This is the first passenger flight service between Doha and Beijing to resume since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia. The Guangzhou and Shanghai routes will gradually increase to one flight per day, the Hangzhou route will increase to two flights per week from the same day, and will subsequently increase to four flights per week, and the Hong Kong route will increase to two flights per day from April 1 .
SHEIN denies the accusations made by U.S. non-government agencies, saying it operates normally in the U.S. in compliance with laws and regulations.
A few days ago, it was reported that SHEIN, a fast fashion cross-border e-commerce company, faced the risk of being shut down by Shut Down SHEIN, an American civil union organization, due to avoiding tariffs. Specifically, SHEIN defined American users as individual importers, as long as the user’s order does not exceed U.S. dollars do not need to pay tariffs. SHEIN responded on the 27th that SHEIN categorically denied the false claims made by American non-governmental organizations and resolutely defended the company’s rights and interests.
Redmi officially announced the joint name “Harry Potter”.
The Redmi Note 12 Turbo, which is expected to be released tomorrow night, will launch a “Harry Potter” joint model. Due to the limited space for updating and improving the function, form, and performance of smartphones, co-branding with famous IPs has become a way for more and more mobile phone brands to “innovate”.
The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives said he would push for legislation on the TikTok bill.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that lawmakers will move forward with legislation to address national security concerns about TikTok. Some lawmakers said that TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi’s performance at the hearing last week not only failed to alleviate the concerns of lawmakers, but instead increased the possibility of taking certain actions. “LatePost” reported last week on TikTok’s hearing in the United States, which is the starting point for US legislative discussions.
Part of Twitter’s source code leaked on GitHub.
A GitHub user named “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” has leaked part of Twitter’s source code, possibly months ago. After Twitter sent an infringement notice to GitHub on March 24, the relevant code was taken down. The company is now asking for court assistance and launching an internal investigation. After Musk acquired Twitter, large-scale layoffs caused employee dissatisfaction. Currently, Twitter management suspects that the suspect who leaked the code may be an employee who will leave in 2022. Musk said in an email that Twitter is currently valued at $20 billion, less than half of the $44 billion purchase price.
Goodbye, Silicon Valley Bank.
First Citizens Bank of the United States announced on its official website a few days ago that it has reached an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to purchase most of the external loans and certain other assets of Silicon Valley Bank hosted by the latter, and to assume all customer deposits and FDIC of Silicon Valley Bank. As part of the deal, First Citizens Bank will also receive a loan line from the FDIC as part of the deal to host some of the debt held by the created bridge bank, involving $110 billion in assets of Silicon Valley Bank.
Moore’s Law gradually failed, and Gordon Moore, who proposed it, also passed away.
On the evening of March 24 local time, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel and the creator of “Moore’s Law”, died at his home in Hawaii at the age of 94. In a paper published in the journal “Electronics” in 1965, Moore proposed “Moore’s Law”, which will be regarded as the first law of the chip industry in the future, that is, the number of transistors integrated on a single chip will double every year. Later, as the wafer manufacturing process continued to evolve, the size of the transistor was getting closer and closer to the physical limit, and “Moore’s Law” also ushered in revisions and variants in various contexts. Intel’s “pendulum strategy” (Tick-Tock) to upgrade a generation of wafer manufacturing processes every two years is the development direction set by Moore’s Law. A recent example is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s prediction about AI: the number of intelligences in the universe may double every 18 months.
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