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This being the first edition of the Opening Bell, it's only appropriate that we touch on the retail trading frenzy that has gripped stock markets around the world. Easy access to online brokerages - coupled with a bit of FOMO - amid the Covid-19 pandemic drove countless tech-savvy millennials to park idle money in stocks.

However, a closer look reveals a hidden underlying trend. It seems that online broking startups in Asia have stolen a march on their more experienced banking counterparts.

For instance, Zerodha, a fintech darling of Indian millennials, shook up the decades-old broking industry with its zero-brokerage-fee model and is now comfortably the country’s largest broker, having more than double the active clients than its closest listed counterpart, ICICI Securities Ltd (ISEC, NSE), which runs the trading platform ICICIDirect.

Meanwhile, online stock brokerage Ajaib in 2021 became Indonesia’s fastest unicorn and is leaving more established players, such as Bank Mandiri’s Mandiri Sekuritas (BMRI, IDX), biting the dust, having captured over a million of the archipelago’s roughly 2.7 million equity investors.

However, given the close links between online stock broking and digibank services, Ajaib may soon face heated competition from players such as Bukalapak (BUKA, IDX), which is set to enter Indonesia's digibank race.

The Indonesian ecommerce giant's co-founders have even doubled down on the fintech sector, with their VC firm, Init 6, joining the seed round of Monit, a B2B fintech startup, Tech in Asia exclusively reported.

Speaking of ecommerce giants, we released the first episode of our video series on how Shopee made use of Sea Group’s (SE, NYSE) war chest and Tencent’s backing to dethrone Lazada and become Southeast Asia’s top ecommerce platform within five years.

Meanwhile, IPO-bound J&T Express, another Tencent-backed company, is making waves. With a pre-money valuation of about US$20 billion, the logistics firm has scaled new heights by riding the boom in Indonesia’s ecommerce space. Our premium story looks at the keys to its global ambitions.

And, now back to the pandemic-induced retail trading boom, which has led to wild market swings and even brought on the "meme stock" phenomenon (members of ​​r/BursaBets and r/WallStreetBets, we’re looking at you 👀). However, this is not always a good thing, as the cautionary tale of stockbroking app Robinhood (HOOD, NDAQ) has shown us.

The online stockbroking pioneer has seen its share price collapse by around 84% from its 52-week high of US$85 after heightened regulatory scrutiny. Additionally, the US trading frenzy has shown signs of waning amid climbing interest rates and inflation.

It has not all been smooth sailing for online stockbrokers in Asia either. Stocks of Tencent-backed Futu Holdings (FUTU, NDAQ) and UP Fintech (TIGR, NDAQ), which runs Tiger Brokers, have endured a torrid year despite churning out promising numbers.

They have come under the microscope as China’s central bank has warned that online brokerages not licensed by Beijing were operating illegally if they were serving Chinese clients through the internet.

-- Shravanth

4 STOCKS TO WATCH

Image credit: Timmy Loen
 

🇨🇳 Alibaba (BABA, NYSE)

The pioneer of Singles' Day is reporting its third-quarter results during Valentine’s week, with its earnings expected on Tuesday, February 15. It’s been a tumultuous couple of years for the Chinese ecommerce behemoth amid the Xi administration’s fierce crackdown on the country's tech companies. The stock is currently trading more than 50% below its 52-week high of US$274.29.
 

🇮🇳 Zomato (ZOMATO, NSE)

Having plunged nearly 6% on Friday, this stock is likely to be on the radar of the “buy-the-dip” kind of investor. The foodtech giant reported a loss of ​​998 million rupees (US$13.3 million) in the third quarter. The platform's losses shrank 74% year over year, thanks largely to a one-time gain from the US$50 million sale of sports facilities provider Fitso to Curefit.
 

🇩🇪 Delivery Hero SE (DHER, ETR)

The parent company of Foodpanda, the Asian food delivery giant, lost more than a third of its market value ‌after its FYE 2022 earnings outlook fell short of market expectations last week. Foodpanda’s results for the fourth quarter, however, were a bit more upbeat as the firm reported US$997.8 million in quarterly revenue - an almost 62% jump from the previous year.
 

🇮🇳 FSN E-Commerce Ventures (NYKAA, NSE)

The Nykaa parent shed more than 10% last week after its third-quarter net profit slumped 58%. While it is one of the few profitable startups in India, the online fashion and beauty retailer's quarterly expenses ballooned 91%.

3 MARKET WHISPERS

Photo credit: Tech in Asia Indonesia
 

1️⃣ A cut where it hurts

Oyo is planning to reduce the size of its IPO offering as tech firms' stock prices trend downward. The hotel chain’s public issue will be smaller than the US$1.2 billion originally planned. The hospitality startup, currently valued at US$9.6 billion, may slash both its primary and secondary share sale offers. Oyo may also have to readjust its valuation expectations.
 

2️⃣ Hitting reset

Nike (NKE, NYSE) and Amazon (AMZN, NDAQ) have set their sights on Peloton Interactive (PTON, NDAQ), a maker of exercise bikes. Peloton, a one-time pandemic winner, replaced its CEO and cut 2,800 jobs in a bid to revitalize its sales and win back investor confidence. Its shares have surged around 50% over the last week.
 

3️⃣ Pre-IPO prep

IPO-bound Carousell is in talks to buy Singapore-based proptech firm 99 Group for US$150 million in a cash-and-stock deal, two people familiar with the matter told Tech in Asia. The online classifieds giant has been in talks for a merger with blank-check company L Catterton Asia Acquisition to list in the US in a deal that could value the joint entity at US$1.5 billion.

2 QUOTES FROM THE WISE

Image credit: Automobile

• “The foundation of the economy is labor,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a recent earnings call. “So what happens if you don’t actually have a labor shortage? I’m not sure what an economy even means at that point. That’s what Optimus is about.” Say what you want about Musk, he knows how to build hype! Optimus is the humanoid robot Tesla first teased in 2021.

• “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful” is the mantra of Warren Buffett, the famed investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. With global markets whiplashing and reeling from inflationary pressure and rising geopolitical tensions, it's probably time to pay heed to this quote.

1 NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Earnings, a mammoth deal collapse, and an IPO

SoftBank Group Corp (9984, TYO) has had quite a week. Its third-quarter net profit plunged 97% from the previous year, as tech valuations across the globe remained subdued.

The Japan-based tech conglomerate also pulled the plug on its sale of semiconductor firm Arm to US chipmaker Nvidia Corp (NVDA, Nasdaq) for up to US$80 billion, having not received regulatory approvals.

SoftBank is now working on an IPO for Arm, with the UK-based company likely to be listed on the tech-focused Nasdaq exchange by March 31, 2023.

That’s it for this edition - we hope you liked it!

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Happy investing and see you next week!