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Kidtech startup SuperAwesome raises $17M, with strategic investment from Microsoft's M12 venture fund

Kidtech startup SuperAwesome has raised an additional $17 million in funding, which includes a new strategic investment from Microsoft's venture fund, M12. Others participating in the round include existing investors Mayfair Equity, Hoxton Ventures and Ibis, along with other angels. To date, SuperAwesome has raised $37 million in outside investment.

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  President Trump's re-election bid may fatten up fast-food stocks

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  Chipotle, Google, Tesla, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway: Companies to Watch

  Yahoo Finance

Chipotle, Google, Tesla, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway: Companies to Watch

Chipotle, Google, Tesla, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway are the companies to watch

How Traders Trapped by China Holidays Are Hedging the Virus Risk

(Bloomberg) -- This is a nerve-wracking week for global investors with exposure to Chinese assets: the country’s markets are closed for the Lunar New Year, leaving them unable to hedge risks arising from the coronavirus epidemic.Still, there are a range of stock and bond proxies listed in the rest of Asia, Europe and the U.S. that offer a way to trade -- even when the country is closed:U.S. ListingsAs many as 79 Chinese companies have their ordinary shares or depositary receipts in the New York Stock Exchange, according to an exchange publication. That includes Alibaba Group Holding (consumer-discretionary), PetroChina Co. (energy) and Yum China Holdings (restaurant chain).Nasdaq-listed stocks include JD.com, Baidu Inc. and NetEase Inc.Most of these companies reflect the re-focusing of China from an export-driven economy to a domestic-consumer story. The inevitable impact of the virus on economic activity may hurt these companies, but there’s also a counter argument.As China locks down tens of millions of people, discouraging them from physical shopping and traveling, some may turn more toward online transactions, boosting the fortunes of these firms.The S&P/BNY Mellon China ADR Index, which tracks depositary receipts on both exchanges, fell 6% last week, the biggest plunge since September.Movers overnight:Alibaba drops most since Oct. 18, erases this month’s gainsPetroChina ADR takes three-day decline to 5.5%Yum China drops as much as 8.2% before paring lossesBaidu drops a fifth day, the longest streak since Nov. 20JD.com fell the most since Sept. 27NetEase extended its retreat to a sixth dayEuropean ETFsA clutch of ETF listings in Europe offers a way to wager on the issue.While China has an agreement with the London Stock Exchange to help companies make initial public offerings in the U.K. capital, the plan is still in an early stage.For now, funds do the heavy lifting. The iShares MSCI China A UCITS ETF, which tracks China A shares, has assets close to $800 million and has given investors a 25% return in the past year. Its top holdings include the beverage company, Kweichow Moutai Co., and Ping An Insurance Group.Paris and Frankfurt offer products too.The Lyxor China Enterprise HSCEI UCITS ETF, traded in the French capital, has a market capitalization that’s 23% below its total assets of 627.6 million euros ($692 million). That may tempt investors who believe China can spring back from the crisis.The Xtrackers MSCI China UCITS ETF in Frankfurt gives traders greater exposure to technology and consumer companies in the world’s second-largest economy. With Alibaba and Tencent Holdings among its top picks, the fund offers a way of trading U.S.-listed Chinese companies before New York markets open.Movers overnight:iShares MSCI China A UCITS ETF (London) dropped 6.4%, most since May 7Lyxor China Enterprise HSCEI UCITS ETF declined 5%, biggest drop since February 2016 Xtrackers MSCI China UCITS ETF drops to a six-week lowCurrenciesThe offshore yuan trades round the clock. On Monday it closed down 0.8% at 6.9866, compared with the onshore currency’s close on Thursday at 6.9368.In one of the few Asian markets open on Monday, the Thai baht weakened for a third day and extended its decline on Tuesday.Other China proxies in the currency market include the Australian dollar, which weakened more than 1% versus the greenback on Monday. And commodity-related foreign-exchange markets, such as the Russian ruble, South African rand and Chilean peso, slumped as energy and metals prices tumbled.DerivativesSingapore offers an opportunity to trade Chinese assets in similar hours to Shanghai or Shenzhen.The city-state offers offshore futures of China’s mainland listings (known as A shares) based on the underlying FTSE China A50 Index. The current near-month contract trades at a discount to the underlying index that’s six standard deviations off its mean. Most of the gap is due to the Chinese holidays and could close when the markets reopen.The Cboe China ETF Volatility Index has gained 65% in the past five sessions -- though the U.S.-oriented Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, is up 92% in that time. The VXFXI was starting at a higher base, however, closing on Jan. 17 at 16.47 compared with 12.10 for the VIX.Movers overnight:FTSE China A50 February contract plummets to a discount of 666 points to its underlying indexU.S. ETFsAs many as 54 American ETFs provide a vehicle for investors to buy Chinese stocks, bonds and even commercial paper. The top five of these funds have assets of almost $16 billion. That may seem negligible compared with China’s equity-market capitalization of $7.5 trillion, but given the market has only opened up to global capital in recent years, it represents the largest opportunity for investors.U.S. ETFs investing in Chinese assets received $360 million of inflows last week, a 76% drop over the previous week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. But that was the biggest inflow among emerging-market nations, a pointer to China’s dominance in the asset class even in these stressed times.Movers overnight:iShares MSCI China ETF falls below its 50-day and 100-day moving averagesiShares China Large-Cap ETF has the biggest three-day loss since August\--With assistance from Joanna Ossinger and Tomoko Yamazaki.To contact the reporter on this story: Srinivasan Sivabalan in London at ssivabalan@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Nicholson at anicholson6@bloomberg.net, Carolina WilsonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Facebook Restricts Employee Travel to China on Virus Concern

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. started restricting employee travel to China as the deadly coronavirus continues to spread across the world’s most populous country, according to people familiar with the decision.The limits, which went into effect Monday, halt non-essential travel to China by all Facebook employees. If workers have to visit the country, they need specific approval. Facebook staff based in China, and those who recently returned from trips to the country, are also being told to work from home, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private communications. The company declined to comment.Honda Evacuates, Starbucks Stores Shut: Virus Impact on BusinessThe travel restrictions at the social media company are likely to impact its hardware division, which sells devices such as the Portal video chat hub and Oculus virtual reality headsets. Hardware requires frequent travel from the company’s Silicon Valley offices to China, where engineers and managers oversee product development, meet with suppliers and transport prototypes.Facebook’s current products likely won’t be impacted, but the move could cause engineering delays on future devices, one of the people said. The company is looking to other facilities that it has in Vietnam to pick up any work that can’t be done in China, the person added.While Facebook is one of the smaller hardware makers among the U.S. technology giants, its plight underscores the potential impact of the virus on the industry. The majority of Apple Inc.’s vast supply chain is in China and other parts of Asia. Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google also make their devices in the region.To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Gurman in Los Angeles at mgurman1@bloomberg.net;Kurt Wagner in San Francisco at kwagner71@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair BarrFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Buy Sluggish Amazon Stock Ahead of Q4 Earnings on Possible 2020 Surge?

Amazon stock has fallen over 4% in the last six months. It appears that investors are worried about Amazon's profit. But how long will Amazon stock stay stagnant as the e-commerce powerhouse spends to speed up its delivery?

Boris Johnson set to make crunch decision on Huawei

The prime minister is expected to allow Huawei a limited role within the UK's 5G infrastructure, despite aggressive lobbying for a ban from the US.

TikTok Rival Byte Debuts at Top of U.S. App Store

(Bloomberg) -- Byte, a new video-sharing app released Friday to compete with ByteDance Inc.’s TikTok, has rocketed to the top of Apple Inc.’s U.S. App Store.Created by Dom Hofmann, Byte reboots the deprecated Vine video-sharing service, which he co-founded in the summer of 2012 and sold to Twitter Inc. later that year. The parent company failed to find a way to make the service profitable and eventually discontinued it in 2016. Despite its brief existence, Vine became a cultural touchpoint in the U.S., with many users embracing its six-second time limit as a creative challenge. It was where controversial YouTube star Logan Paul, whose channel now has more than 20 million subscribers, got his start.Byte “ended Friday as the No. 1 free iPhone app on the U.S. App Store and is still in the top spot,” said Randy Nelson of research firm Sensor Tower. Beside the U.S., Byte is also the top free iOS app in Canada and ranks in the top 10 in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the U.K. On Android’s Play Store, Byte is sixth among free apps in the U.S.The new app was downloaded more than 780,000 times over the weekend, with three quarters of those installs coming from the U.S., Sensor Tower estimated on Monday.The timing of Byte’s release coincides with a moment of reckoning for TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company. ByteDance is looking to hire a chief executive officer for TikTok, which is under increasing scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers wary about the influence of Chinese companies on American consumers. TikTok’s runaway popularity has been deemed to create “national security risks,” according to a letter by Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton in the fall.Unlike ByteDance, which is the world’s highest-valued startup, and most other social media contenders, Byte is starting off small and its community guidelines make several references to the company’s modest budget. Still, the strong early response to Byte’s arrival -- coming with little to no advance fanfare -- suggests the community that Vine built up remains loyal to the particular six-second format. Some of the early popular videos on the platform are humorous proclamations of “Don’t post TikToks here.”(Updates with downloads in fourth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Vlad Savov in Tokyo at vsavov5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Exxon at a 10-Year Low Shows Challenges for Oil’s Biggest Major

(Bloomberg) -- It’s almost as if the last decade never happened for investors of Exxon Mobil Corp. shares.Once the gold-standard of Big Oil, the stock closed Monday at its lowest since October 2010, amid a slump in oil prices due to concerns about weak demand coupled with a glut. The S&P 500 also posted its worst one-day decline since October.But for Exxon, which dropped out of the index’s top 10 largest companies by market value for the first time last year, the malaise runs deeper than the state of the crude market.Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods is running a counter-cyclical strategy by investing heavily in new oil and gas assets, at a time when many investors are demanding energy companies improve returns for shareholders. Some shareholders are even demanding a plan to move away from fossil fuels altogether. Exxon is betting on a “windfall of cash” to arrive from its investments sometime in the mid to late 2020s, said Noah Barrett, a Denver-based energy analyst at Janus Henderson, which manages $356 billion. “Right now there’s higher value placed on generating cash flow today.”Exxon is ramping up capital spending to more than $30 billion a year, without a hard ceiling, as it develops offshore oil in Guyana, liquefied natural gas in Mozambique, chemical facilities in China and the U.S. Gulf Coast, as well as a series of refinery upgrades. Woods is convinced the world will need oil and gas for the foreseeable future and sees an opportunity for expansion while competitors shy away from such long-term investments.The short-term cost of those investments is that Exxon can’t fund dividend payouts with cash generated from operations, instead resorting to asset sales and borrowing, according to Jennifer Rowland, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. Exxon is the “clear outlier” among Big Oil companies on that front, she said. Exxon declined to comment.Exxon’s current challenges stem in large part from flag-planting deals made when commodity prices peaked during the past decade. It spent $35 billion on U.S. shale gas producer XTO Energy Inc. in 2010 when shale oil promised outsize returns. It has invested $16 billion in Canadian oil sands since 2009, only to remove much of those reserves from its books. Former CEO Rex Tillerson’s 2013 exploration pact signed with Russia was caught behind a wall of sanctions and later abandoned.Also read: Exxon in ‘Bull’s-Eye’ as Worst Year Since Reagan Nears End To contact the reporter on this story: Kevin Crowley in Houston at kcrowley1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Carlos CaminadaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Facebook Q4 Preview: Buy FB Stock Before Earnings?

Investors need to know what to expect from Facebook's Q4 financial results and beyond to help understand what might be next for Facebook stock...