Positive news from China is rare. Yesterday morning, a news outlet reported that China removed a gaming regulatory official. Before that, the head of the publishing unit of the Communist Party’s Publicity Department published tough draft rules against the online gaming industry.
China’s gaming firms – Tencent (TCEHY), NetEase (NTES), and Bilibili (BILI) – collectively lost $80 billion. Gaming investors may consider the former two stocks in this space. Those who do not want the political risks may consider Sony (SONY), Microsoft (MSFT), and Electronic Arts (EA).
SoFi (SOFI) investors will try to outflank the bears who have an over 40% short interest. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Michael Perito’s downgrade to “underperform” sent SOFI stock down 13.89% on Jan. 2. The analyst missed SoFi’s prior monster rally. Still, market momentum is fading for SoFi.
Risks of interest rates not falling by at least three to five times this year are high. It decreases the attractiveness of online lenders and fintech. PayPal (PYPL) is the bell-weather stock for this space. PYPL stock lost 4.59% on Jan. 3.
Shorts have an 18.7% short interest on buy now, pay later at Affirm (AFRM). Its expansion of the pay-later service to Walmart (WMT) self-checkout is not a strong catalyst. Customers may balk at taking more credit to pay for goods they do not need.
