Chargepoint rosy result

One of Pika World favourites, ChargePoint, is on the rise again after its latest second quarter sales report release. While the loss per share was wider than expected, earnings do not matter as much for a company growing aggressively.

To much surprise, the sales beat expectation, and there is rosy guidance of about $60-$65 million in sales for the third quarter, much higher than analysts $55 million expectation.

This is indeed a great quarter despite many negative performances from the auto industry. For example, if we recall, GM had a dull forecast for its 2H2021 earnings and other EV related small caps stock prices have also tumbled over the past 3 months.

Job Report Shows Weakness

It seems like Covid 19 effect is roaring back again as private sector employment continues to disappoint. In addition, the Delta variant appears to have hurt the hiring process. Thus, this is a weak shift towards recovery from the labour market after a robust private hiring process in the first half of 2021.

Pika World believes that beyond Covid 19 variant, a mix of other factors such as supply chain problems also offers an uneven recovery process, and such a trend may persist. Also, the labour market appears to be on a tight note, given that companies are also facing difficulty finding people to fill up the vacancy.

Chinese EV Companies

Nio and XPeng appeared to disappoint investors as their deliveries figures are underwhelming. But, of course, they had long blamed the semiconductor shortage, which is hurting production.

Nonetheless, NIO’s guidance for September hints at a possible bounce back to normalcy as it expects to deliver around 9000 vehicles.

Li Auto had an excellent record delivery compared to its peers. It delivered 8433 vehicles that are an increase from 8589 vehicles in July. This marks the second consecutive month where we saw Li Auto delivering more vehicles than Nio and XPeng.

Pika World remains constructive on Chinese EV sectors while also mindful of a continuous corporate crackdown in China, and the sector is not immune to possible adverse impact or sentiments.

Alphabet: Walking in the Shadow of Apple?

The company aims to use its computer chips for its laptop and tablet computers range, which is expected to help it reduce reliance on external parties for semiconductors. If this is true, then the company appears to walk into the path of Apple, which had also used internal chips instead of those produced by Intel for their Mac computers and laptops.

In particular, we have seen robust performance in Alphabet share price as the company seems to move back into hardware devices as it may build chips for Pixel smartphones. It will not be surprising as many Big Tech are developing their chip-making capabilities. In addition, we have seen how Amazon, Facebook and even Tesla work on personal chips for internal consumption of their products, ranging from data centres to electronic items and even cars.

What’s on the Menu Today?

At 8.30 pm, we will receive the Initial Jobless Claims, which is expected to hover around 345K, almost similar to 353K in the prior period.

When the clock hit 10 pm, the Factory orders are expected to increase by 0.3%, a moderation from 1.5% in the prior period.

From 1 is to 3 am, we see FOMC members speaking, such as Bostic and Daly, which may hint at a possible tapering schedule.

It is 2 September, Wednesday, 7.35 am in Singapore and 7.35 pm in New York. Pika World wishes all friends an energetic week ahead!