Ignatius Bose

Kyle Bass does not expect anything significant to happen at this weekend’s trade summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and says investors should brace for the Trump administration to slap tariffs on the remaining Chinese goods. According to Kyle Bass, the founder and managing director of Hayman Capital Management, a renowned hedge fund based in Texas, the best possible outcome that could emerge would be for both leaders to schedule for fresh talks, which would boost investor sentiment since neither would benefit from reaching a deal. He says that while Xi can wait out Trump’s tenure, the US President does not have that leverage and in case he agrees to an imperfect deal, he will not only be attacked by the opposition, but will face immense scrutiny from Republicans as well, a situation he would prefer to avoid in his re-election year. Bass says Washington will eventually lay tariffs on the remaining $300 billion Chinese imports and while the US Government would raise about $100-150bn annually, it is only a fraction of the two economies. The fund manager is of the view that the advantage the Chinese had over the last few years has disappeared due to advancing wage growth, shipping and insurance costs, and although China’s growth has created demand for commodities like oil, food, and essential materials, the slowing economy will drag the US into a mild recession by the mid of next year. Kyle’s advice to the average investor to overcome the downturn is to expand investments into real assets like gold and real estate. He says the recent surge in the prices of gold and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could just be the beginning, as “everyone sees the writing on the wall.”

Prices of Bitcoin plunged more than 20% in a matter of minutes on Wednesday following the website crash of leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. While the exchange reported a fix a few hours later, the temporary outage of both its website and API led to panic selling with the digital currency plunging from $13,697 to $11,650 in less than 15 minutes. According to BitMex data, Bitcoin reported volumes of about $250m within the first 5-minutes of the initial drop, which eventually soared to $690m within the next few minutes. Earlier on Wednesday, prices of Bitcoin rose to the highest since January 2018, surging as high as $13,868 on Coinbase before the fall. However, by the end of the day, the digital currency reversed losses to settle at $12,927 on the Coinbase exchange, gaining almost 10% on the session. So far this month, the cryptocurrency has rallied more than 45% with prices jumping about 15% this week alone. Year to date, prices of Bitcoin have spiked more than 250% after settling at $3,691 last year. At 9.00 AM GMT on Thursday, Bitcoin was seen trading at $12,271, down more than 5% for the day.

Ahead of a crucial meeting between US President Trump and his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit this weekend, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC that the talks between the two sides had progressed by about 90%, and the path to successfully conclude the trade talks were already in place. While Mnuchin did not provide details on what the disagreement was about or what led to the fallout in negotiations, he only said that Trump and Xi could advance the stalled talks at this weekend’s summit. He also said it was good that the Chinese are back to negotiating the trade agreement as it would have a positive outcome on both the economies. Earlier this month, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross played down expectations of any significant developments in the talks except saying that the most one can expect is an agreement for the resumption of stalled negotiations. According to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch investor survey, about two-thirds do not anticipate the trade deal to be finalised this weekend, while they also do not believe that the US would impose fresh tariffs on China.

Crude oil prices are rising on Wednesday after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported late on Tuesday that US crude oil supplies fell by 7.5 million barrels for the week ending 21st June. Additionally, the API said that the US stockpile of petrol fell by 3.2 million barrels while inventories of distillates surged by 160,000 barrels. At 1pm GMT on Wednesday, the benchmark Brent August futures (BRNQ19) and its American counterpart, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for August shipments (CLQ19) were gaining by 1.3% and 1.9% respectively. The API generally announces the crude oil inventory data ahead of the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which is due to publish its data later today. According to a survey conducted by S&P Global Platts, the EIA is expected to show a 2.8 million barrels fall in crude inventories last week, about a third lower than the one put out by the API. In the meanwhile, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) who were due to meet on 25th-26th June to discuss ongoing supply cuts have now decided to hold off until 1st-2nd July. Crude is likely to find support from the mounting tensions between the United States and Iran and the supply glitch following Washington’s sanctions on Iranian oil.

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) interest in “autonomous systems” has led the tech giant to purchase autonomous vehicle start-up Drive.ai for an undisclosed sum. This follows Apple’s announcement a few weeks back that it is in talks to buy the struggling start-up, founded four years back by machine learning specialists from Stanford University. The deal is expected to bolster Apple’s quest for building self-driven autonomous vehicles under its guarded “Project Titan,” in which the tech company is said to be partnering with car manufacturers such as Volkswagen to provide the hardware while Apple designs the software. In addition to purchasing the start-up’s autonomous cars and other assets, the tech giant is hiring some engineers and product designers from Drive.ai who will be joining other employees from rival autonomous car companies like Waymo and Tesla. Earlier in January, Apple slashed about 200 jobs from its car project citing restructuring, even as it went about testing is autonomous cars in California. The number of self-driven test vehicles registered by Apple in California continues to mount and is said to have overtaken Google’s autonomous spin-off, Waymo.

Three large Chinese banks, including Beijing’s fifth-largest lender, the Bank of Communications, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and China Merchants Bank are in contempt for non-compliance with US subpoenas in a probe into violation of sanctions in North Korea. The US Department of Justice first initiated the investigation in 2017 and found that the banks were working with a Hong Kong-based company to launder about $100m to the US-sanctioned North Korean Foreign Trade Bank. The subpoena battle will be taken up by the federal appeals court next month and could lead to the termination of the US accounts of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, which are mostly used to facilitate dollar transactions. China Merchants Bank, on the other hand, said that it is not involved in the investigations related to the violation of sanctions while the Bank of Communications stated that the US courts are trying to obtain customer info from Chinese banks stored outside the country. The news sent the stocks of the three banks into a tailspin on Tuesday with the China Merchants Bank ending with losses of 4.82%, while the Bank of Communications closed 3.08% lower and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank settled with losses of 3.08%.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the frontrunners to succeed Theresa May as the UK's prime minister, have individually stated that they are more prepared for a no-deal Brexit rather than pursue the existing agreement with the European Union. Although the two leaders said they would prefer to exit the EU in an orderly manner, their key demands include renegotiating the existing Brexit agreement. Britain’s once-booming automobile sector has been struggling since the Brexit uncertainty, with production and investment coming to a standstill in 2017. While Britain’s largest carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover announced more than 4,000 job cuts recently, Ford said that it would shut down one of its two engine manufacturing plants and Honda is expected to cease operations. Added to that, the no-deal Brexit warning is causing concerns among UK car makers, who say that a disorderly exit will result in billions of pounds in tariffs while the border disruption could cripple the industry. The European Union is the biggest export market for Britain’s car manufacturers and, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a jumbled exit could lead to tariffs of 10% on automobile exports from Britain and the hard Brexit border could result in delays, causing additional losses to the extent of £50,000 a minute.

Shares of Allergan Plc. (NYSE: AGN) are soaring to seven-month highs on Tuesday after pharma major AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV), a spin-off from Abbott Laboratories said it would buy the Botox-maker for about $63bn in a cash and stock deal. Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of Allergan will receive 0.8660 AbbVie shares for each Allergan share in addition to $120 in cash per share. Based on Monday’s closing price of $129.57, AbbVie’s offer comes at a premium of 45.3% or $188.24 apiece. As of 3rd May, Allergan had a total of 327.8 million outstanding shares, representing a market cap of $61.71bn. While the deal is expected to add 10% to the adjusted earnings per share of AbbVie in the first year due to synergies and cost savings to the extent of $2bn, Allergan’s popular Botox product will come under the same banner as AbbVie’s cancer and arthritis drugs. Shares of Allergan have plunged close to 50% in the last two years due to eroding investor confidence as mounting competition and failure in securing drugs from the clinical stage to the markets have impacted earnings, even as the company was looking for potential buyers to exit a part or the entire business. Allergen is trading with gains of more than 31% an hour before US markets open for trading on Tuesday while shares of AbbVie are down more than 8% on fears that the drugmaker could be overpaying for the struggling Allergan.

In a $26bn deal that could shake-up the US wireless industry, US telecom majors, Sprint Corp and T-Mobile US Inc. are awaiting the approval of the Department of Justice and the clearance from regulators to complete the planned merger, which was first initiated during spring last year. With the US expressing security concerns on China’s Huawei Technologies, T-Mobile’s deal for Sprint Corp. couldn’t have come at a better time, with the companies saying that the merger would bode well for the US to become a formidable player in the 5G space. However, wireless investors expect the merged companies to garner greater pricing power in the new industry structure if the deal is approved. While the deal is expected to be approved by the DoJ shortly, it could result in Sprint selling $6bn in spectrum, in addition to exiting its Boost mobile prepaid business and its Virgin mobile brand. However, even if the DoJ approves the deal, the merger comes with an additional challenge as attorney generals from several states have filed lawsuits, claiming the deal would stifle competition, although arguments for and against the views of the state attorneys seem to be divided. For now, the merger is hinging on the approval of the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with the latter having already voiced its support for the deal with a few conditions.

Shares of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) surged more than 1% in US pre-market on Monday after analyst Cai von Rumohr at Cowen upgraded the stock to “outperform,” and increased his price target from $135 to $150. Since the proposed merger of United Technologies with Raytheon Co., the stock has seen a selloff amid concerns that the union could result in job losses, with shareholders and communities like Tucson that host both the companies likely to be affected if the merged company decides to shift its headquarters. However, Rumohr sees the merger as a win-win for both the companies in terms of attractive standalone valuation, even as the merger would go on to create the world’s second big aerospace and defence major after Boeing Co. Van Rumohr believes that if the merger goes through, United will gain from a greater cash-flow per share due to an increase in its finances and if the merger fails, the stock will head closer to $150-155, based on its sum-of-the-parts valuation.

Bitcoin surged as high as $11,284 on the Coinbase exchange on Sunday, its highest level since March 2018, before pulling back below the psychological $11k mark on Monday. Over the last couple of weeks, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency has rallied more than 37% over growing optimism that a large number of companies would adopt digital currencies following the involvement of big players like Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB). Last week, Facebook unveiled its Libra digital coin with the backing of about two dozen companies, and investors believe the social media giant will create mass awareness of the digital currency, which could lead to an increasingly large number of people and firms adopting the alternative asset class. One of the other reasons for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to surge in recent days is the mounting tension between the United States and Iran, who almost went to war last week, while the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing is also lending support to the digital currency. Prices of bitcoin have surged three-fold from its lows of $3,337.87 in January this year, and the G20 summit later this week could determine the near-term outlook for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

In a major boost to Facebook’s payment system, the Bank of England Governor said that the central bank could allow new payment services such as the social media giant’s Libra cryptocurrency to hold overnight funds with them. According to the governor, extending access to new payment providers “can improve the transmission of monetary policy and increase competition.” Currently, only commercial banks are allowed to hold overnight funds with the central bank. The primary reason of facilitating payments between banks and businesses and being a part of the financial system could significantly boost demand for Facebook’s cryptocurrency, which has already partnered with about two dozen businesses in a bid to raise capital to develop the currency. Facebook’s new crypto is expected to hit the markets next year and could open the floodgates to a whole new world of online transactions, benefitting millions of individuals who do not have a bank account. However, for the coin to be accepted into the mainstream financial system, Facebook will have to comply with a host of regulations, including consumer protection, anti-money laundering, data protection, and operational resilience.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) is the parent of the largest health insurer in the United States, UnitedHealthcare, with a market value of close to $235bn. Equian LLC, on the other hand, provides payment processing services to companies in the healthcare sector, including insurers with a one of a kind technology that can detect processing related errors, often resulting in overpayments. Based on market information, UnitedHealth has agreed to buy Equian from PE firm, New Mountain Capital for about $3.2bn and is likely to merge it with its subsidiary, Optum health-services, which caters to hospitals, insurers and health-care firms. The merger would lead to Optum offering diverse services beyond healthcare to the rapidly growing industry. According to Dealogic, after technology, the healthcare sector has been the most active in terms of M&A’s with deals valued at more than $260bn announced so far this year. Shares of UnitedHealth settled with losses of about a per cent on Thursday and are down by more than half a per cent, year to date.

Delta Airlines Inc. (NYSE:DAL), the #2 US carrier acquired a 4.3% stake in the parent of Korean Airlines Co Ltd., Hanjin Kal Corp. as it looks to expand operations across Asia. Joint ventures not only allow airlines to coordinate fares, and routes while they step up their presence in new markets; it also helps them align strategies. Delta and Korean Air are members of the SkyTeam alliance and formed a JV last year to include 290 US destinations and more than 80 across Asia, while the US carrier launched its operations to Seoul and Osaka in association with Korea’s airlines. The US-based carrier is expanding internationally, both through joint ventures and equity investments, even as it eyes to increase its stake in the parent of Korean Airlines to 10% over time. As of now, Hanjin owns 30% of Korean Air and its hub in South Korea’s capital, Seoul could be the gateway for Delta’s operations across Asia. In addition, if Delta raises its stake to 10% in Hanjin Kal, it would become the third largest shareholder in a business that includes hotels, logistics and budget airlines. Delta currently owns stakes in Air France KLM, Virgin Atlantic, China Eastern, Grupo Aeromexico and Brazil’s Gol, while it is negotiating a stake deal with Italy’s Alitalia.

Prices of spot gold rallied two and a half per cent to $1394.25 a troy ounce on Thursday, a day after the Fed left key interest rates unchanged at its June monetary policy meeting. Market analysts took the Fed’s omission of the “patient” stance as a sign that the Fed funds rate currently at 2.25-2.50% would be slashed this year. Based on the projections of the Fed’s outlook for future interest rates, also known as the “dot plot,” while Central Bank policymakers were unanimous in their decision to leave interest rates unchanged in the March meeting, they remained at odds on whether to cut interest rates this year. In a low-interest rate setup, precious metals like gold tend to attract buyers, and although prices pulled back from within striking distance of the $1400 mark, last seen in September 2013, gold continues to remain well supported from the uncertainty surrounding the US-China trade tariffs and the ongoing slowdown in global economic growth.

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) reported solid fourth quarter numbers for the fiscal year ending 31st May, pushing the company’s shares as high as 7% in the extended US market hours on Wednesday, before closing with gains of 4.54%. While the database company’s earnings and outlook beat market estimates, shares of the company surged beyond the previous peak of $55.41 before pulling back. Here are some of the key numbers and the company’s outlook for fiscal Q1 and FY 2020: Revenues rose to $11.14bn from $11.01bn, beating analysts’ expectations of $10.93bn. For fiscal 2019, revenues surged $39.51bn from $39.38bn a year earlier. Earnings per share, excluding certain items, increased to $1.16 a share for the quarter, beating Street expectations of $1.07 apiece. The company’s first quarter guidance for fiscal 2020 is for an EPS of 80-82 cents against revenue growth of 2%, in line with analysts’ expectations in a Refinitiv poll. For FY 2020, Oracle expects revenues to advance at a faster pace than the previous year and anticipates double-digit EPS growth, bettering analysts’ expectations of a 7.6% surge in EPS, to $3.79 a share. Oracle also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.24 a share, representing a dividend yield of 1.82%. At the end of the fourth fiscal quarter, the data enterprise company's outstanding shares stood at 3.5 billion, after it bought back 734 million shares at an average price of $49, totalling $36bn.

Slack Technologies Inc., the workplace messaging company, is all set to list directly on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. The firm, valued at $15.7bn based on a reference price of $26 set on Wednesday, is expected to open considerably higher than its reference price, according to The Wall Street Journal's sources. Slack has appointed Citadel Securities as its market maker and it will, along with Morgan Stanley, determine the opening price to the public. Once the spread narrows to around a dollar, Citadel Securities will open the stock for trading. The market maker will also try to reduce volatility by offering two side quotes throughout the day. Slack is the first company in the Silicon Valley to go for a direct listing after Swedish streaming giant Spotify last year. According to analysts, investors and bankers, if the public listing goes ahead without any major hiccups, a large number of companies could follow suit, which would significantly cut down the listing time and the massive fees to underwriters. Unlike a typical IPO, Slack Technologies will start trading between 11.30am and 12.30pm on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “WORK.”

Japan posted a trade deficit of ¥967bn in May from a surplus of ¥56.8bn in the previous month as exports slumped 7.8% from a year earlier to register the sixth successive monthly drop in outbound shipments. Although imports fell at an annual pace of 1.5%, it wasn’t sufficient to offset the sharp decline in the country’s goods exports. Exports to Asia dropped 12% with shipments to Japan’s biggest trading partner, China, sliding 9.7%, while shipments to Australia and Brazil declined by 17.2% and 30% respectively. On the contrary, Japan’s exports to the US surged 3.3% from the previous year. Japan’s trade deficit, the first in four months was largely led by a 28% plunge in shipments of chip-making and semiconductor parts to China amid pressure from the United States. In addition, mounting global uncertainty and a broad global economic slowdown are also hurting exporters. Japan’s trade gap followed a ¥577bn shortfall a year earlier and was better than the ¥979bn deficit that analysts were expecting.

In a bid to stem the escalation of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and prevent the global economy from a systematic collapse, central banks across the world slashed interest rates to record lows following the crisis. The low-interest rates caused yields on government securities to plunge to never-before-seen levels with some securities even offering negative yields. While the purpose was to dissuade investors from participating in these debt instruments and look for potential alternate securities like corporate debt, equities and even longer-term investments like real-estate, the idea was successful in the long-run. With markets slowly stabilising, investors exited these government securities and plunged into the higher yielding risky assets, and while equities markets soared, the low-interest rates pushed households to invest in automobiles and homes, boosting business investment and job creation, thereby contributing to broader economic growth. Markets are in an identical setup today with yields on a large number of benchmark government securities falling into negative territory. Based on Bloomberg data, the value of government debt with yields below zero stands close to $12tn as of 17th June. While this reflects negative investor sentiment in the backdrop of the US-China trade conflict, central banks are pulling out all the stops by loosening monetary policy and providing stimulus in a bid to boost domestic consumption and drive inflation. On Tuesday, the yields on the Austrian and French 10-year bonds slipped below zero for the first time in history, joining the German and Japanese sovereign benchmarks. In the absence of a catalyst, and with mounting debt weighing on growth and inflation, analysts expect the yields on government paper to remain near record lows for an extended period.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) shared details of its cryptocurrency called Libra coin on Tuesday, even as it said it would roll out its highly anticipated digital currency next year. While the core similarity between Facebook’s Libra coin and its peers such as Bitcoin begins and ends with the blockchain technology that the social media giant plans to employ in its digital currency, there are quite a few dissimilarities. For a start, Facebook’s crypto would be pegged to fiat currencies like the dollar and the euro to prevent it from wild swings associated with the other cryptocurrencies. Secondly, Facebook’s digital payment gateway is expected to be backed by more than twenty companies comprising of some of the top payment corporations such as Visa, Mastercard and Paypal along with a host of tech, media and ride-sharing businesses. Thirdly, the cryptocurrency will be overseen by an independent Geneva-based agency, Libra Association with several companies backing Facebook’s venture being part of the organisation. Lastly, users can safely store their Libra coins on Facebook’s digital wallet, Calibra and use them to make payments over the internet and on Facebook’s social media platform.  

The ongoing US-China trade war has led Fitch Ratings to cut its global economic outlook in 2020 to 2.7 per cent from its earlier estimate of 2.8 per cent. The rating agency has cited slowdown in business investments in the US, weaker consumer spending in China, and a softer outlook across emerging markets as some of the reasons for tapering down its forecast. In its latest outlook on the global economy, Fitch has not factored in the effect of the Trump administration expanding tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports. However, it said that if the US increases tariffs to cover the rest of Beijing’s goods imports and if China retaliates, global growth would slip by 0.4 per cent, while the US GDP would fall by 0.5 per cent and China’s growth would plunge by 0.8 per cent. According to the chief economist of Fitch, Brian Coulton, trade uncertainty is leading businesses to remain cautious on capital expenditure, and in the current circumstances, even supportive monetary policy measures may not be sufficient to shield economies from the effects of the trade war. Coulton also went on to say that even if the trade war does not escalate further, the damage to the global economic outlook is already in motion.

MoneyGram (NASDAQ:MGI) announced on Monday that it would use Ripple’s (KRAKEN:XRPUSD) blockchain technology for cross border transfer of digital funds for at least two years. In return, Ripple will invest up to $50m in the money transfer firm by buying its stock at nearly three times its value based on Monday's closing price. The announcement sent MoneyGram’s stock skyrocketing in after-market hours to $3.90, a gain of by more than 165% from its Monday’s closing price of $1.45 a share. According to the deal, Ripple will purchase $30m worth of MoneyGram shares at $4.10 apiece with the option to buy another $20m at a minimum price of $4.10 a share. MoneyGram said it would use the money to refinance its loan and revolving credit facilities, which currently stands at about $900 million, based on its financial statements. Shares of MoneyGram have been in freefall after a failed $1.2bn bid to sell the company to Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was blocked by US authorities. The company’s stock has slumped more than 80% in the last year and is more than 99.5% down from its all-time highs of $296.48 achieved on 1st May 2006. Ripple’s (XRPUSD) cryptocurrency, which is seen as a challenge to bitcoin, has also not been performing well after hitting all-time highs of $3.30 in January last year, and although the coin rose about 5% following Monday’s developments, it continues to trade around 0.44 cents apiece.

American chip suppliers to the Chinese tech giant Huawei are quietly persuading the US Government to lift the ban on sales to the world’s largest telecom equipment maker and the third largest smartphone manufacturer, correspondingly. Their rationale: Chips sold to Huawei for its smartphones and computer devices are commonly available parts and do not present a security threat, unlike the telecom giant’s 5G networking gear. The companies argue that while the ban will impact Huawei, US companies too will be largely affected since US chip makers benefitted to the tune of $11 billion last year from the telecom giant’s $70 billion component purchases. US chip makers involved in discussions with the Government include Intel Corp., Qualcomm, Micron Technology Inc., and Xilinx Inc. In addition, the trade group, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said it is consulting with Government officials on behalf of companies from the sector on the impact of the ban, even as it states that as long as technologies do not fall under the ambit of national security, they should not be barred. While Huawei said it had not asked any of the US companies to lobby on their behalf, US chipmakers are aware that cutting off business with the telecom giant would lead to disastrous consequences for them.

Executives from some of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges are expected to meet finance ministers and heads of states at the G-20 summit on 28th-29th June to discuss the details of the anti-money laundering proposal by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Although the proposal is expected to be published by the FATF on 21st June, the industry widely supports most of its recommendations. However, the key area of concern is the anti-money laundering agency’s proposal to exchanges, custodian banks and the other stakeholders; collectively called “virtual asset service providers,” to collect and maintain records of participants using their services and present them to regulators, in line with the traditional banking laws adopted by most countries. Called the V-20 Summit, the get together will allow firms in the digital currency space to highlight their concerns of the controversial proposal, which they fear will lead to off-exchange crypto transactions, compliance costs, and the eventual shutting down of several digital exchanges. As of now, participants from the crypto industry include executives from Coinbase, bitFlyer, Huobi, Circle, and Kraken while several country representatives from the FATF are also likely to be a part of this exchange.

As Alibaba Group Holding readies to list in Hong Kong, the company has proposed a stock split of 1:8, which it will present to shareholders for a vote at its board meeting scheduled in Hong Kong on 15th July. Even as the Chinese e-commerce giant anticipates to raise up to $20 billion from its latest offering, the Board has urged shareholders to vote in favour of the proposal, saying that while the stock split will lead to a rise in the number of shares issued, the offer price per share will be relatively low. The company also plans to neutralise the impact of its Hong Kong listing on its American Depository Shares (ADS) by changing the ratio of its ordinary shares to eight shares for one ADS. According to sources, Alibaba has already filed to list in Hong Kong and the second listing comes just five years after the company raised $25 billion from its public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. Alibaba is currently valued at around $400 billion with its stock up about 13 per cent year to date.