>>> Hong Kong Stocks in Focus

Hong Kong stocks in focus: US equity markets ended higher, Hong Kong markets due to resume trading after recent holidays; China announced deaths from the coronavirus have risen to 132 from 106

- (CN) China updates on Coronavirus: 5,974 cases v 4,515 yesterday; Deaths 132 v 106 prior
- (CN) Chinese press reports suggest medical experts in China are already working on a coronavirus vaccine, which could potentially be ready in a matter of months
- (HK) Hong Kong Chief Exec Lam: Need to lower the travel between HK and China; Flights from China to Hong Hong to halve
- (CN) Reportedly China suspends issuing travel permits to Macau – press
- (US) Follow Up: White House is monitoring China/US flights, decided against suspending air traffic - financial press
- (CN) China PBoC: To offer abundant liquidity after Lunar New Year holiday via Open market Operations (OMOs)
- China markets to resume trading next Monday, Feb 3rd
- Capitaland [CAPL.SG]: Sets up special task force for China operations; Has closed both of its malls in Xi'an (China), remaining 45 malls in China will operate with shorter hours
- Apple [AAPL]: Reports Q1 $4.99 v $4.54e, Rev $91.8B v $87.7Be; Guides Q2 Rev $63-67B v $62.5Be

Consumer Discretionary
Fosun Tourism expects coronavirus to cut revenues of tourism operations in China – US financial press
6862.HK Haidilao International: To close all restaurants across China from Jan 26-31, to help contain spread of virus

Health care
2005.HK SSY Group: Notes antiviral drug Abidol Capsule has been included under list of emergency procurements in China

Industrials
66.HK MTR: Need extra travel time on East Rail line

>>> US After Hours Summary: Apple shines with strong earnings, but XLNX

After Hours Summary: Apple shines with strong earnings, but XLNX and EBAY trade lower on earnings/guidance

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: MTSI +13.4%, MXIM +3.8%, MINI +3.5%, AAPL +1.2%, CMRE +0.9%, SKY +0.7%, OSIS +0.3%, SYK +0.1%, WRB +0.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: STSA +2.1% (publishes Phase 1 results for lead product candidate), AKCA +0.8% (announces "positive" Phase 2 results), TEVA +0.6% (FDA approval for AJOVY injection autoinjector device)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: XLNX -9.1% (also announces 7% global workforce reduction), CHRW -7.2% (also will acquire Prime Distribution for $225 mln), EBAY -5.3%, AMD -4.4%, TRMK -1.8%, SBUX -1.1%, FCF -0.2%, MSTR -0.2%, RGA -0.2%, NVR -0.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: BHVN -9.7% (commences $250 mln public offering), CERS -6% (commences $50 mln public offering), AMPH -3.3% (FDA issued a "MINOR" Complete Response Letter for its ANDA for Epinephrine Injection), ESTA -1.6% (commences $55 mln stock offering), MTCH -1.4% (CEO stepping down; CFO Swidler adds COO role), POL -0.1% (announces $450 mln offering)

>>> US CLose Dow +0.66% S&P +1.01% NAsda +1,43% Russell

Closing Stock Market Summary

U.S. stocks bounced back on Tuesday, recovering a bulk of yesterday's losses as investors bought the dip amid waning coronavirus concerns. The Nasdaq Composite led the rebound with a 1.4% gain, while the S&P 500 (+1.0%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%), and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) followed behind. 

The day began with modest gains, as the market looked past disappointing earnings reports from 3M (MMM 165.56, -10.07, -5.7%) and Pfizer (PFE 38.10, -2.06, -5.1%), then stocks climbed higher soon after the Conference Board released its Consumer Confidence Index for January. That index rose to 131.6 (Briefing.com consensus 128.0) from 128.2 in December. 

All 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the rally, including five that rose at least 1.0%. The information technology sector (+1.9%) led the charge on the back of Apple (AAPL 317.69, +8.74, +2.8%), which was set to release its earnings report after the close. Shares got an added lift on reports Apple asked suppliers to raise iPhone production levels by more than 10% over the last year.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which was among yesterday's worst-performing groups, rose 2.4%. The consumer staples sector, which was yesterday's best-performing S&P 500 sector, increased just 0.1%. 

As for the coronavirus, there weren't too many positive developments on the situation, as more cases and deaths were confirmed in China with additional travel restrictions enacted. Investors, however, appeared placated by the fact that it remained under control in the U.S. Any negative impact to earnings growth, thus, might be transitory or minimal.

In other earnings news, United Technologies (UTX 152.86, +1.83, +1.2%) and Lockheed Martin (LMT 437.17, +4.79, +1.1%) were some of the more notable companies today that beat top and bottom-line estimates.

U.S. Treasuries gave back some of their recent gains, sending yields modestly higher. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.46%, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 97.98. WTI crude rose 0.7%, or $0.39, to $53.40/bbl. 

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

  • The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rose to 131.6 in January  consensus 128.0) from an upwardly revised 128.2 (from 126.5) in December.
    •  The key takeaway from the report is that the survey group remains optimistic about the overall situation, as nearly 41% of respondents described business conditions as good while 49% of respondents believed that jobs are plentiful.
  • Total durable goods orders rose 2.4% m/m in December (consensus +0.5%) following a downwardly revised 3.1% decline (from -2.0%) in November. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders slipped 0.1% (consensus +0.3%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.4% decline (from 0.0%) in November.
    • The key takeaway from the report is that nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- declined 0.9% after increasing just 0.1% in November. Shipments of these goods, which factor into GDP computations, were down 0.4% following a 0.3% decline in November.
  • The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 2.6% yr/yr in November (Briefing.com consensus 2.5%) following a 2.2% yr/yr increase in December.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the following on Wednesday: an FOMC Rate Decision, Pending Home Sales for December, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the Advance reports for Wholesale Inventories, Retail Inventories, and Trade in Goods.

  • Nasdaq Composite +3.3% YTD
  • S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD
  • Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD

(TheVerge) Neil Young says the MacBook Pro has ‘Fisher-Price’ audio quality

Neil Young says the MacBook Pro has ‘Fisher-Price’ audio quality
And most consumer audio sucks

Musician Neil Young and tech executive Phil Baker have been trying to push the tech industry to make it easier for consumers to listen to high-quality audio for almost a decade now. The duo’s hi-res music player Pono aimed to fix problems they said plagued MP3 players like the iPod and music software like iTunes — including compressed, lossy, and low-fidelity audio files that were not similar enough to their original recordings.
But five years after the Pono was released, Young believes the tech industry has still not advanced enough for consumers to easily listen to high-resolution audio. Their new book, To Feel the Music: A Songwriter’s Mission To Save High-Quality Audio, details the hurdles they had to overcome to create the Pono as well as what the tech industry should do in order to get consumers to realize what they’re missing with streaming and “CD-quality” music.
In an interview with The Vergecast, Young tells Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel that even though Grammy-winning artists are able to make music almost anywhere they go on their laptop or mobile devices, they’re still sacrificing on audio fidelity.

Below is a lightly edited excerpt of that conversation.
So many artists today write their songs on tour in a hotel room on a MacBook. They’re not starting with the big analog studio. They’re not starting with tape. They’re starting digitally. Does that carry through? Is it even worth it to talk about the output format when it’s teenagers in bedrooms writing hits right now?

Well, they’re starting on a MacBook, recording straight to MP3.
Yeah, I know. But if that’s what they want to put out as a record, that’s a problem.
Right. But I’m saying... I’m looking at the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Apple gave me a review unit. They said, “Look at all of the artists who use this thing with GarageBand to start.” But you’re saying that shouldn’t be where the recording starts?
It’s a piece of crap. Are you kidding? That’s Fisher-Price quality. That’s like Captain Kangaroo, your new engineer. A MacBook Pro? What are you talking about? You can’t get anything out of that thing. The only way you can get it out is if you put it in. And if you put it in, you can’t get it out because the DAC is no good in the MacBook Pro. So you have to use an external DAC and do a bunch of stuff to make up for the problems that the MacBook Pro has because they’re not aimed at quality. They’re aimed at consumerism.
That’s what Steve Jobs told me. He told me that exact thing: “We’re making products for consumers, not quality.” So they don’t want audio quality. They don’t want to spend a lot of time on that. Audio quality — for your reference and for anybody else that’s listening — is deeper than visual quality.
You can look at things and think you’re seeing everything with a hi-res whatever you’re looking at in a picture. But true audio dimension is so deep, and there’s so much data there if you want to capture it all — in the echo and the softness and the loudness and the difference as things are decaying and getting smaller and smaller as they go away. That’s part of the beauty of sound, and the beauty of music based on that is that you can hear all of the detail.
Now, when you talk about doing that on a MacBook Pro, it makes me barf. This is where we are.
But I see so many artists... we talk to artists, we interview them. We did a video with a guy who won lots of Grammys, works for lots of people, and he’s like, “I assemble samples in the back of my car using my MacBook Pro. I love it. This is how music is made.”
I’ve never won a Grammy for music, so I wouldn’t know about that quality.
Sure. I’m just saying, we talked to the people who are making the money, and they’re like, “I assemble samples on my MacBook Pro.”
It’s not about money. It’s not about hits. It’s about quality. It’s about sound. It’s about museum quality. It’s about the real thing. The facts. The real sound. What happened when you opened your mouth and sang? What went into the air? That’s what we’re not getting with the new technology.
The older technology used to give you a reflection of it so that you could still feel it. Today, it’s reconstituted. It’s poorly sampled. It’s garbage that has less bits to save people memory, which is not even relevant anymore. We have so much memory we’ve got it coming out of our ears. Yet we’re still saving memory, saving quality, so we can store more crap. It’s just we’ve gone down this bad street, and we’re way down. So if you talk to somebody about quality and they’re using anything from that, they’re not going to hear it. They’re going to hear today’s quality. And they may be great as far as today’s quality goes, but to me, it’s just like it doesn’t matter.

>>> Chinese press reports suggest medical experts in China are already working

Chinese press reports suggest medical experts in China are already working on a coronavirus vaccine, which could potentially be ready in a matter of months - Other experts caution it could take much longer to develop a vaccine

Global Times tweets: "China is likely to have a vaccine for #novelcoronavirus for public use within three months, which will include a month and a half of development and a month and half of testing: Li Lanjuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering"