TheChek News Flow

Apple has officially announced its highly-anticipated iPhone 16 event for September 9. The event, which includes an in-person component at Apple Park, will take place on September 9 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. The Apple event invite teases: “It’s Glowtime.”

Here’s everything you need to know about next month’s Apple event, including expectations for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.

It is becoming less lucrative to speculate on luxury watches, creating a knock-on effect in brands’ stores

To read the luxury watch business, it can help to look at what is going on in the secondhand market. Falling prices for used watches suggest that a recovery in firsthand sales will take a long time.

Watches were one of the worst categories for Europe’s top luxury companies in the latest quarter. Richemont, which owns Cartier as well as Vacheron Constantin CFR -0.25%decrease; red down pointing triangle, said sales of its specialist watches dropped 13% year over year in the three months through June. LVMH MC 0.12%increase; green up pointing triangle said sales in its watches and jewelry division fell 4% over the period, while Hermès RMS -0.14%decrease; red down pointing triangle watch sales dropped 4.9%.

The watch business has an unusually vibrant secondhand market. Around $50 billion of brand-new luxury watches are sold each year. A further $25 billion trade hands used, according to estimates from industry data provider WatchCharts.com.

For the luxury goods industry as a whole, secondhand sales were worth just 12% of primary market sales in 2023, according to consulting firm Bain & Co. Watches tend to hold their value better than other types of luxury products, and resale websites such as Watchfinder.com have made secondhand trading easier and more transparent.

But luxury brands have lost two sources of demand lately. Consumers who spent their excess savings on expensive watches during the pandemic pulled back once they were able to splurge on other things such as travel.

Speculators are also slipping away. For a while, luxury watches were billed as a hot new alternative investment. According to Charles Tian, founder of WatchCharts.com, many “crypto bros” diversified their portfolios by buying and flipping posh watches.

The trade was lucrative for hard-to-find models because collectors were willing to pay up to skip waiting lists in brands’ stores. At the peak of the luxury watch frenzy in March 2022, a Rolex Daytona could be bought new for $14,550 and immediately resold for $47,000 in the secondary market, data from WatchCharts.com shows. The Rolex Daytona still costs more to buy secondhand than new, as the brand keeps supply artificially low, but the arbitrage is less appealing now that the resale premium has shrunk to 43%.

Speculators also have backed away because they don’t want to be left with unsold stock. Available inventory on watch resale websites has soared. Because of a glut, a Rolex that took less three weeks to sell in 2021 now sits on the market for more than three months. The wait time is even longer for Patek Philippe watches, which currently take around half a year to shift.

The good news for watch connoisseurs is that they no longer have to compete with speculators to get their hands on rare watches in brands’ stores. Shoppers still can’t buy certain models immediately, but waiting lists are getting shorter.

Brands such as Patek Philippe that have an order backlog can rely on pent-up demand to keep sales steady during this slump. The outlook for less-coveted watchmakers such as LVMH-owned TAG Heuer and Hublot is more mixed.

Serious watch collectors keep a close eye on which models retain their value and are reluctant to splash out on a watch that is dropping in price secondhand. Nine consecutive quarters of falling watch values on resale platforms will depress demand and make it harder for the highest-end brands to raise prices in the primary market. Until the resale market stabilizes, luxury watch brands will have a difficult time.

A case was opened last month to investigate child pornography, drug sales, fraud and other criminal activities on the platform. The app’s founder, Pavel Durov, was detained over the weekend near Paris.

Prosecutors in France said on Monday that Pavel Durov, the entrepreneur who runs the Telegram messaging platform, had been arrested in connection with an investigation opened last month into criminal activity on the platform and a lack of cooperation with law enforcement.

Mr. Durov, 39, was detained on Saturday at Le Bourget Airport near Paris after landing on a private plane from Azerbaijan. He has not been charged and remains in custody, which can be extended through Wednesday, according to prosecutors.

Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that the arrest was part of an investigation opened on July 8 “against person unnamed” on a raft of potential charges, including complicity in the distribution of child pornography and selling of drugs, money laundering, and a refusal to cooperate with law enforcement.

The investigation is being handled by cybercrime and anti-fraud specialists, Ms. Beccuau said. “It is within this procedural framework that Pavel Durov was questioned by the investigators,” she said.

It is unclear whether any of the charges listed by Ms. Beccuau will be held against Mr. Durov.

In France, complex criminal cases are handled by special magistrates who have broad investigative powers and can place defendants under formal investigation, charging them when they believe the evidence warrants it.

But the magistrates can later drop charges if they do not think evidence is sufficient to proceed to trial, and cases can take years.

Mr. Durov’s arrest has become a flashpoint in the debate about free speech on the internet. President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday dismissed accusations from supporters of Telegram that the arrest was an example of government censorship.

“The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,” Mr. Macron said in a statement posted on X. “It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”

It was an unusual step for Mr. Macron, as French leaders usually refrain from commenting on the early stages of criminal investigations.

“France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship,” Mr. Macron wrote. “It will remain so.”

Telegram has more than 900 million users, with growth driven partly by a commitment to free speech. Telegram’s light oversight over content on the platform has helped people living under authoritarian governments communicate, but it has also made the app a haven for harmful content. Telegram works as a standard messaging app, but also hosts channels and groups in which large numbers of people can broadcast ideas and communicate, with minimal moderation.

Telegram has long been on the radar of law enforcement agencies because terrorist organizations, drug sellers, weapons dealers and far-right extremist groups have used it for communicating, recruiting and organizing. National governments, especially those in the European Union, have intensified pressure on technology companies to address disinformation, online extremism, child safety and the spread of illicit material.

The arrest of Mr. Durov, who was born in the Soviet Union, could further strain relations between France and Russia, which are already at a low point over French support for Ukraine in the war against Russia. The Russian Embassy in France said in a statement on Sunday that it had asked the French authorities for clarification on the arrest and requested consular access to the Telegram founder.

Mr. Durov, whose net worth was estimated by Bloomberg at more than $9 billion, left Russia in 2014 after he lost control of Vkontakte, the rival to Facebook in Russia. The year before, he had founded Telegram, which is now based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Mr. Durov has citizenship in France and the U.A.E., according to Telegram.

In a statement on Telegram on Sunday, the company said “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.” Mr. Durov, the company added, “has nothing to hide.”

The French leader said politics played no role in the decision to detain Pavel Durov on Saturday

PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron fired back at critics of the detention of Pavel Durov, the founder and chief executive of messaging app Telegram, saying politics played no role in the decision to take the 39-year-old tech entrepreneur into custody over the weekend.

The move to detain Durov generated criticism on X, the social-media platform owned by Elon Musk, who posted “#FreePavel” and said France was attempting to censor Telegram. France’s decision raises the ante in the fight between governments and the biggest digital companies over the degree to which they can be held responsible for potentially dangerous content online.

“I read false information here about France following the arrest of Pavel Durov,” Macron said Monday in a post on X. “The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”

Police detained Durov at Le Bourget airport north of Paris on Saturday night when his private jet landed after a flight from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. French media reported that he was detained as part of a judicial investigation into whether Telegram is flouting requirements to prevent the spread of child pornography and other illegal content on its platform. French judges prolonged his detention on Sunday night, giving them a total of 96 hours to either bring charges against Durov or release him.

France’s judiciary is one of the country’s most powerful institutions, and its judges and prosecutors are fiercely independent. They have investigated some of the country’s most powerful political figures, including the current justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti; judicial authorities ultimately declined to send him to trial. For years, judges have investigated former President Nicolas Sarkozy for a series of possible crimes. A court convicted him earlier this year of violating campaign-finance laws.

French law requires social-media companies and other online platforms to cooperate with authorities in countering the spread of illegal content. It is mirrored to some extent by the Digital Services Act, the European Union law requiring platforms to prevent such content.

Telegram said it complies with the EU law, while also saying it was “absurd” to hold a platform responsible for those whose abuse it.

“In a state governed by the rule of law, freedoms are upheld within a legal framework, both on social media and in real life, to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights,” Macron said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday that the Kremlin doesn’t know why Durov was detained and what he’s accused of, and he called for no conclusions to be drawn until Durov is charged, “if he is charged at all.”

Interesting technology was enough to get a public listing in a more lenient era but commercial aspects were undeveloped

There are 23 pairs of human chromosomes. Decoding them might only be worth 40 cents per share. 23andMe was once a high-flying consumer healthcare start-up, with admirable DNA itself. The founder, Anne Wojcicki, is part of a prominent Silicon Valley family and herself is a longtime healthcare investor. The company’s backers include Wojcicki’s former husband, Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder. Other large investors are Richard Branson and GSK.

But after listing its shares at a $4.5bn equity valuation, through Branson’s Spac, its market capitalisation is now below $180mn. Wojcicki is attempting to take 23andMe private at just 40 cents per share. It is an extraordinary achievement that a simple saliva sample returned by post can now be transformed into a detailed genetic test. But the barrier still to be broken is that of a viable business.

23andMe has various segments. The first is the consumer testing business, where for as little as $99 customers can get their DNA and ancestry analysed. Another involves selling the data that the company collects to researchers. Its drug development business is, however, being wound down while the company recently said it would offer weight-loss services to members of its subscription service.

For now, virtually all of 23andMe’s revenue comes from the consumer business. And it’s not a great business. In its recently completed fiscal year, it generated just $220mn in total revenue. When it listed its shares in 2021, it forecast almost twice that figure. Moreover, customer acquisition costs are elevated and its ebitda loss for fiscal 2024 was $176mn.

Wojcicki wishes to buy the 80 per cent of the company that she does not own. The Spac deal left nearly $1bn of cash on the 23andMe balance sheet. That figure was down to just $170mn at the end of June. Directors criticised the bid as lacking details around the financing secured by Wojcicki, along with a price that offers no premium to the trading price.

What has become clear is that merely interesting technology was enough to get a public listing in a more lenient era. The commercial aspects were undeveloped. 23andMe might get the space to figure out those elements away from public markets and may even be better off within a larger corporation. As for the remaining shareholders, they may not be getting a superior bid than 40 cents as the company is burning cash. The hope is to avoid a takeover price set at 23 cents or less.

Move replicates US measures and follows visit to Ottawa by top US national security official

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would impose 100 per cent tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and 25 per cent levies on Chinese steel and aluminium, in a move replicating recent US measures.

Trudeau said Canada was introducing the EV tariffs because China was “not playing by the same rules”. It marks the latest example of the US and its allies taking actions to counter what they say are unfair economic practices.

“Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace,” Trudeau said in Halifax, Nova Scotia during a cabinet retreat.

The announcement came one day after US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met the Canadian prime minister in Canada and urged Ottawa to follow Washington in imposing tariffs. Sullivan stopped in Canada en route to China where he will hold talks with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.

Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration has invested heavily in trying to persuade American allies to take measures together with Washington to help counter China. Speaking in Canada on Sunday, Sullivan said a “united front” would benefit the US and its partners.

The Canadian finance ministry said the tariffs, effective from October 1, would apply to Chinese EVs including passenger cars, trucks, buses and delivery vans. The steel and aluminium tariffs will come into force two weeks later.

The Canadian government is also launching a 30-day consultation to determine where else Ottawa needs to take action. It will examine batteries, semiconductors, solar products and critical minerals, the ministry added.

The Canadian tariffs follow a similar US action on Chinese EVs and the planned imposition of tariffs by the EU, albeit at lower rates than the US and Canada. Washington and its allies are concerned that China is poised to flood global markets with EVs given its dominant position.

The EU tariffs, which are expected to be approved by the end of October, could range from 9 to 36.3 per cent on top of existing levies of 10 per cent.

The Canadian finance ministry said China’s “intentional, state-directed policy of overcapacity and lack of rigorous labour and environmental standard” threatened workers and businesses in the global EV industry and undermined Canada’s long-term economic prosperity.

“That is why our government is moving forward with decisive action to level the playing field, protect Canadian workers, and match measures taken by key trading partners,” said Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister and deputy prime minister.

Carmaking is one of Canada’s most important manufacturing sectors, with plants clustered around the Great Lakes area to supply consumers in the US. The sector directly employs almost 120,000 people, according to the Canadian government. Ottawa has also followed the US in offering subsidies designed to spur demand for domestically made EVs.

The tariffs come one month after Mélanie Joly went to China in the first visit by a Canadian foreign minister in seven years. Relations between the countries plummeted in 2018 after China detained two Canadian citizens — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — and did not release them for more than three years. The move was viewed as retaliation after Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, in response to a US extradition request.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Aug 26 (Reuters) - Harmony Gold (HARJ.J), opens new tab, South Africa's biggest gold producer by volume, said on Monday its profit probably doubled in the year ended June 30, buoyed by a rise in output of the precious metal, better grades and a price rally.

The Johannesburg-based miner reported preliminary headline earnings per share of $0.98 for the financial year, up from $0.45 per share a year earlier. It is due to release its final full-year results on Sept. 5.

Harmony is among South Africa's few remaining gold miners squeezing profits from some of the world's oldest and deepest gold mines. It said gold output is expected to have risen 6% to 1.56 million ounces in the year through June 30, surpassing an earlier target of 1.55 million ounces.

Still, Harmony's profit was weighed down by a 2.8 billion rand ($157.51 million) writeoff of its Target North project in South Africa after recent studies showed its mineral reserves are less than previous assumptions.

The Target North project may no longer be viable, Harmony CEO Peter Steenkamp said, adding that additional studies are still ongoing.

Further investment in the project located in South Africa's Free State province would be weighed against Harmony's Eva Mine copper project in Australia and the Wafi-Golpu gold-copper project in Papua New Guinea, which it seeks to jointly develop with partner Newmont.

Harmony is among South African gold producers that have shifted focus to elsewhere in Africa, Australia and the Americas and to other metals as digging for gold in some of the world's deepest mines becomes more costly and dangerous.

The Australian and PNG copper projects are part of Harmony's pivot towards copper which is in demand for use in the production of electric vehicles and renewable energy systems, pushing its price to record highs this year.

Gapping down
In reaction to earnings/guidance:

Other news: