Finance

Early indicators of China’s biggest shopping event of the year reveal a pickup in select categories amid expectations of modest growth in overall sales.
“What we’re seeing so far, it’s going to be slightly better in terms of GMV growth over last year,” Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, said in an interview Thursday.
“Sentiment is quite different this year, much calmer,” wrote Ashley Dudarenok, founder of ChoZan, a China marketing consultancy. “Chinese consumers are not caught up in the ‘buy buy buy frenzy,’ they are hunting [for] more expensive products that they actually need vs just lower prices.”

Employees package and sort express parcels at an e-commerce company on Nov. 1, 2024, around the Double 11 Shopping Festival in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province of China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

BEIJING — Early indicators of China’s biggest shopping event of the year reveal a pickup in select categories amid expectations of relatively modest growth in overall sales.
China’s version of Black Friday kicked off on Oct. 14, more than a week earlier than last year, as e-commerce players Alibaba and JD.com grapple with tepid consumer spending. The shopping festival, also known as Singles Day or 11.11, has in recent years evolved into a weeks-long promotional period since Alibaba launched it in 2008 on Nov. 11.

“What we’re seeing so far, it’s going to be slightly better in terms of GMV growth over last year,” Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, told CNBC Thursday. The company helps foreign brands — such as Vitamix and IS Clinical — sell online in China and other parts of Asia.
GMV refers to gross merchandise value, an industry measure of sales over time. China’s e-commerce giants stopped reporting Singles Day GMV in 2022 during the pandemic. In 2021, Alibaba said its GMV rose by 8% while JD’s climbed by 28%, totaling more than $139 billion.
Singles Day GMV this year as of Oct. 30 was 845 billion yuan ($119.1 billion), according to research firm Syntun. It was not clear how the GMV figures compared to 2023 given the extended promotional period this year.
Around 80%, or roughly $95 billion, came from Alibaba, JD.com and PDD, while nearly 20% was generated via livestreaming sales platforms Kuaishou and ByteDance’s Douyin, the Syntun report showed.

While Singles Day GMV no longer grows by 30%, Cooke said he expects around 15% growth this year, better than the 11% increase in 2023, when the festival lasted for 19 days, according to his company’s data.

“Things that are experiential-based are starting to do really well, less on the Louis Vuitton luxury and more on the lululemon is kind of what we’ve said about this for a while,” Cooke said. “It’s just that consumer habits have really changed.”

Subsidies boost appliances

Helping boost sales this Singles Day are China’s subsidies for trade-ins of home appliances, launched in late July. Chinese authorities since late September have started doubling down on stimulus efforts by cutting rates on existing mortgages and signaling further support.
“We believe [the] 11.11 festival this year will be a critical point and is poised to reflect on the recovery trajectory in 3Q24 and 4Q24,” analysts at UOB Kay Hian said in a report.
They predict 4% to 5% growth in Singles Day GMV, with sales in the home appliance category supported by the trade-in program.
Alibaba said government subsidies and platform benefits contributed to a more than seven-fold surge in presales of home appliances during the first hour on Oct. 14, compared with the first hour of presales last year.
JD.com said that between Oct. 14 and Oct. 31, transaction volume grew by double-digits versus the same period a year ago. The company claimed record sales in consumer electronics and home appliances, without disclosing figures.
“This year, it seems that the price war of e-commerce platforms has slowed down overall, returning to a certain degree of rationality after the intense price competition,” Dave Xie, partner at Oliver Wyman, said in a statement. He also noted Beijing’s stimulus announcements and a recovery in consumer sentiment.
“In the initial phase of Singles Day, categories such as home appliances and consumer electronics, outdoor gear, beauty and cosmetics, and pet supplies have all performed well,” Xie said.

‘Micro’ shopping trend

A consumer trend that’s emerged this year is in toys and collectibles, often from a game or popular animated series. The category is usually referred to as IP in China.
”A lot of international brands have been fighting for licenses to try to get in here and do this as well,” Cooke said.
There’s always “a micro trend in every year’s 11.11 and this really seems to be it this year,” he said. “Something that kind of came out of nowhere, into all of a sudden really, really big numbers.”
More than 100,000 products based on licenses for over 1,000 characters — such as the games Genshin Impact and Arknights — are being launched on Alibaba’s Tmall this Singles Day, according to Yuke Liang, a representative for the business’ designer and collectable toy category. Products include collectable cards, figurines and clothes.
The category also includes Lego and British toy company Jellycat, which launched a Valentine’s Day plush dog in China for Singles Day, Liang said. The 7,000 dogs, priced at around $50 each, sold out in seconds, she said.
Japanese manga Chiikawa opened a Tmall store in late September, and saw more than 100,000 shoppers simultaneously order a $9.72 limited edition plush, Liang said.
Liang said Taobao and Tmall started developing the IP category in 2017, and elevated it in 2021 to one of its few tier-one segments in terms of product promotion and business priority. She said most buyers are in their early thirties or younger, and prefer to spend on products perceived as bringing happiness or other emotional satisfaction.

Sentiment is ‘much calmer’

Despite such pockets of growth, China’s Singles Day remains more toned down than in prior years.
“Sentiment is quite different this year, much calmer,” wrote Ashley Dudarenok, founder of ChoZan, a China marketing consultancy. “Chinese consumers are not caught up in the ‘buy buy buy frenzy,’ they are hunting [for] more expensive products that they actually need vs just lower prices.”
She expects that at best, Singles Day this year may be “slightly better” and driven by different categories.
The shopping promotions officially wrap up on Nov. 11.
James Yang, head of Greater China retail at consultancy Bain & Company, said the firm has “muted expectations” for Singles Day this year, continuing the trend of the last two years.
JD is set to release quarterly results on Nov. 14, while Alibaba is scheduled to release earnings on Nov. 15. More

Affirm, the U.S. buy now, pay later firm, on Monday launched its services in the U.K. — its first expansion overseas.
Max Levchin, CEO of Affirm, told CNBC the company is seeing a lot of demand from merchants in Britain.
Affirm’s arrival in the U.K. comes as the government is consulting on plans to regulate the buy now, pay later industry.

PayPal Inc. co-founder and Affirm’s CEO Max Levchin on center stage during day one of Collision 2019 at Enercare Center in Toronto, Canada.
Vaughn Ridley | Sportsfile | Getty Images

LONDON — Buy now, pay later firm Affirm launched Monday its installment loans in the U.K., in the company’s first expansion overseas.
Founded in 2012, Affirm is an American fintech firm that offers flexible pay-over-time payment options. The company says it underwrites every individual transaction before making a lending decision, and doesn’t charge any late fees.

Affirm, which is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, said its U.K. offering will include interest-free and interest-bearing monthly payment options. Interest on its plans will be fixed and calculated on the original principal amount, meaning it won’t increase or compound.
The company’s expansion to the U.K. marks the first time it is launching in a market outside the U.S. and Canada. Globally, Affirm counts over 50 million users and more than 300,000 active merchants, including Amazon, Shopify and Walmart.
Among the first merchants offering Affirm as a payment method in the U.K. are Alternative Airlines, the flight booking website, and payments processing firm Fexco. Affirm said it expects to onboard more brands over the coming months.
Max Levchin, CEO of Affirm, told CNBC that the company had been working on its launch in the U.K. for over a year. The reason Affirm chose Britain as its first overseas expansion target was because it saw a lot of demand from merchants in the country, according to Levchin.
“It is a huge market, it’s English-speaking,” making it a great fit for the business, Levchin said in an interview last week ahead of Affirm’s U.K. launch. Affirm will eventually expand into other markets that aren’t English-speaking but this will take more work, he added.

“There are lots of competitors here who are doing a sensible job serving the market. But when we started doing merchant outreach, just to find out locally, is the market saturated? Does everybody feel well served?” Levchin said. “We got such an enormous amount of market pull. It kind of sealed the deal for us.”

Fierce competition

Competition is fierce in the U.K. financial technology space. In the buy now, pay later segment Affirm focuses on, the company will find no shortage of competition in the form of sizable players like Klarna, Block’s Clearpay, Zilch, and PayPal, which entered the BNPL market in 2020.
Where Affirm differs to some of those players, according to Levchin, is that its range of financing products offer customers the ability to pay purchases off over much lengthier periods. For example, Affirm offers payment programs that last as long as 36 months.
Affirm’s launch in the U.K. comes as the government is consulting on plans to regulate the buy now, pay later industry.
Among the key measures the government is considering, is plans to require BNPL providers to provide clear information to consumers, ensure people aren’t paying more than they can afford, and give customers rights for when issues arise.
“Generally speaking, we welcome regulation that is thoughtful, that pushes the work onto the market to do the right thing, but also knows how not to be too cumbersome on the end-customer,” Levchin said.
“Telling us do lots of work in the background before you lend money is great. We’re very good at automating. We’re very good at writing software. We’ll go do the work,” he added. “Pushing the onus on the consumer is dangerous.”
Affirm secured authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority, the country’s financial services watchdog, after months of discussions with the regulator, Levchin said. He added that the firm’s “pristine reputation” helped.
“We’ve never charged a penny of late fees. We don’t do deferred interest. We don’t do any sort of the anti-consumer stuff people struggle with,” Levchin told CNBC. “So we have this good, untarnished reputation of being just very thoughtfully pro-consumer. And merchants love that.” More

Investors expect details on China’s fiscal stimulus plans be come out Friday, after Beijing considers the U.S. presidential election earlier in the week.
“The size of China’s fiscal stimulus package would be around 10~20% bigger under a Trump win than under the scenario of a Harris win,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note.
Liqian Ren, leader of quantitative investment at WisdomTree, expects the scale of Beijing’s stimulus will be determined not by who wins the election, but the stock market reaction.

A flag stall at the Yiwu Wholesale Market in Zhejiang province, China, on May 10, 2019.
Aly Song | Reuters

BEIJING — The size of China’s highly anticipated stimulus plans will likely depend on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, analysts said.
Investors expect Beijing to announce details on fiscal support Friday. That’s when the standing committee of the National People’s Congress — China’s parliament — is due to wrap up a five-day meeting. The same gathering last year oversaw a rare increase in the fiscal deficit.

This year, the meeting’s timing means any details will be out just days after the U.S. has voted Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat rival Kamala Harris in as the next president. Polls are set to close Tuesday local time.
“The size of China’s fiscal stimulus package would be around 10~20% bigger under a Trump win than under the scenario of a Harris win,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note last week.
He cautioned that most of China’s challenges are domestic, though there will be some impact from the U.S. election result.

Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on U.S. imports from China by 60% — or reportedly by even 200% in an extreme scenario. Harris, currently vice president, has not yet signaled a major departure from the Biden administration’s approach of restricting China’s access to advanced technology.
More tariffs would hit China’s exports, a bright spot in an economy grappling with a real estate slump and tepid consumer demand.

Increased trade restrictions would require China to rely more on domestic demand to boost growth, Zhu Bin, chief economist of Nanhua Futures, said in a video presentation last week. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language comments.
“Without question we can be certain of one thing — if Trump wins the election, China’s domestic stimulus will only be larger, not smaller,” Zhu said. He expects Trump has a greater chance of winning, which he said would increase downward pressure on the Chinese yuan versus the U.S. dollar.
Political analysts debate whether China’s relations with the U.S. would be better under Trump or Harris.
“I think at this point, probably from China’s view, a potential president Harris [makes it] easier to expect what policies likely come,” said Liqian Ren, leader of quantitative investment at WisdomTree.
That doesn’t mean Beijing will embark on large-scale support. Chinese authorities are “constrained by the U.S.-China competition, so the priority number one is to be able to upgrade technology across the board,” She said. “I think as long as that’s your goal then the government’s willingness to stimulate is still going to be lukewarm.”
Ren expects the scale of stimulus will be determined not by who wins the election, but the stock market reaction.
Market volatility in China, but not the United states, is likely to make “China feel more obligated to counter this volatility,” she said. In contrast to three or four years ago, Ren said, Chinese stock market volatility today has a greater impact on economic confidence.
Chinese stocks have tempered their gains in recent weeks after surging in late September. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 26 led a high-level meeting calling for strengthening fiscal and monetary policy support, and halting the decline in real estate.
While the People’s Bank of China has cut interest rates, the Ministry of Finance has yet to release details on widely anticipated fiscal stimulus. Finance Minister Lan Fo’an last month hinted at an increase in the deficit, and indicated any changes needed to undergo an approval process before being announced.

How large？

Analyst forecasts for additional debt issuance vary. China is considering more than 10 trillion yuan in debt issuance over a few years, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing sources.
Chinese authorities may not announce a specific number, but if they do, it should be more than 4 trillion yuan, given that was the amount issued in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, said Zong Liang, chief researcher at Bank of China. He expects the deficit could be expanded beyond 4%.
The Chinese government set a deficit target of 3% for this year, after increasing it to 3.8% late last year.
WisdomTree’s Ren said her analysis of official statements, media reports and investment notes revealed that stimulus expectations are inherently about the same. Whether it is 10 trillion yuan over three to five years, or 2 trillion yuan in one year, the average is about 2 trillion yuan in support a year, she pointed out.

Consumption still in question

“I think people right now are focusing a lot on the topline number,” Ren said. “But they are missing [how] the local government, they are doing a lot of things that are actually counter[ing] stimulus.”
She noted how local authorities have so strictly enforced tax collection in some areas that they have discouraged business activity. Despite some central government support, she said, she expects it will “probably be quite a while” before local authorities “feel they have the cash to spend.”
Dozens of companies in China this year disclosed in stock exchange filings that they have received notices from local authorities to pay back taxes tied to operations as far back as 1994. Local governments once relied on land sales to real estate developers for revenue.
The finance ministry has emphasized its focus on addressing local government debt problems. Analysts have pointed out how additional stimulus will also likely go toward banks, not direct handouts to consumers.
Consumption stimulus may come more from property support at this stage, Citi analysts said in a report Friday. “Having said that, we believe more decisive consumption support could still be a realistic option under more adverse tariff scenarios.” More

Political risk—the notion that an election might have a meaningful impact on financial markets—used to be something that was the concern of emerging-market investors. Those in rich countries paid attention to central bankers, rather than politicians. Things are a little different today. In the run-up to America’s presidential election on November 5th, asset prices have moved alongside polling averages. Wall Street hums with talk of the “Trump trade”. More

Political risk—the notion that an election might have a meaningful impact on financial markets—used to be something that was the concern of emerging-market investors. Those in rich countries paid attention to central bankers, rather than politicians. Things are a little different today. In the run-up to America’s presidential election on November 5th, asset prices have moved alongside polling averages. Wall Street hums with talk of the “Trump trade”. More

Warren Buffett walks the floor ahead of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 3, 2024.
David A. Grogen | CNBC

Berkshire Hathaway’s monstrous cash pile topped $300 billion in the third quarter as Warren Buffett continued his stock-selling spree and held back from repurchasing shares.
The Omaha-based conglomerate saw its cash fortress swell to a record $325.2 billion by the end of September, up from $276.9 billion in the second quarter, according to its earnings report released Saturday morning.

The mountain of cash kept growing as the Oracle of Omaha sold significant portions of his biggest equity holdings, namely Apple and Bank of America. Berkshire dumped about a quarter of its gigantic Apple stake in the third quarter, making the fourth consecutive quarter that it has downsized this bet. Meanwhile, since mid-July, Berkshire has reaped more than $10 billion from offloading its longtime Bank of America investment.
Overall, the 94-year-old investor continued to be in a selling mood as Berkshire shed $36.1 billion worth of stock in the third quarter.
No buybacks
Berkshire didn’t repurchase any company shares during the period amid the selling spree. Repurchase activity had already slowed down earlier in the year as Berkshire shares outperformed the broader market to hit record highs.
The conglomerate had bought back just $345 million worth of its own stock in the second quarter, significantly lower than the $2 billion repurchased in each of the prior two quarters. The company states that it will buy back stock when Chairman Buffett “believes that the repurchase price is below Berkshire’s intrinsic value, conservatively determined.”

Stock chart icon

Berkshire Hathaway

Class A shares of Berkshire have gained 25% this year, outpacing the S&P 500’s 20.1% year-to-date return. The conglomerate crossed a $1 trillion market cap milestone in the third quarter when it hit an all-time high.

For the third quarter, Berkshire’s operating earnings, which encompass profits from the conglomerate’s fully-owned businesses, totaled $10.1 billion, down about 6% from a year prior due to weak insurance underwriting. The figure was a bit less than analysts estimated, according to the FactSet consensus.
Buffett’s conservative posture comes as the stock market has roared higher this year on expectations for a smooth landing for the economy as inflation comes down and the Federal Reserve keeps cutting interest rates. Interest rates have not quite complied lately, however, with the 10-year Treasury yield climbing back above 4% last month.
Notable investors such as Paul Tudor Jones have become worried about the ballooning fiscal deficit and that neither of the two presidential candidates squaring off next week in the election will cut spending to address it. Buffett has hinted this year he was selling some stock holdings on the notion that tax rates on capital gains would have to be raised at some point to plug the growing deficit. More

Warren Buffett speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 4, 2024.

Warren Buffett sold another big chuck of his Apple stake, downsizing Berkshire Hathaway’s biggest equity holding for four quarters in a row.
The Omaha-based conglomerate held $69.9 billion worth of Apple shares at the end of September, according to its third-quarter earnings report released Saturday morning. That implied Buffett offloaded approximately a quarter of his stake with about 300 million shares remaining in the holding. In total, the stake is down 67.2% from the end of the third quarter last year.

The Oracle of Omaha started trimming his stake in the iPhone maker in the fourth quarter of 2023 and ramped up selling in the second quarter when he surprisingly dumped nearly half of the bet.

Stock chart icon

Apple, YTD

It’s unclear what exactly motivated the continuous selling in the stock Berkshire first bought more than eight years ago. Analysts and shareholders had speculated it was due to high valuations as well as portfolio management to reduce concentration. Berkshire’s Apple holding was once so big that it took up half of its equity portfolio.
In May at the Berkshire annual meeting, Buffett hinted that the selling was for tax reasons as he speculated that the tax on capital gains could be raised in the future by a U.S. government wanting to plug a climbing fiscal deficit. However, the magnitude of the sales made many believe it could be more than just a tax-saving move.
Berkshire began buying the stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing lieutenants Ted Weschler and Todd Combs. Before Apple, Buffett largely avoided technology companies for most of his career, saying they were outside of his circle of competence.
The legendary investor fell in love with Apple for its loyal customer base and the stickiness of the iPhone. Over the years, he raised his Apple holding to Berkshire’s biggest and even once called the tech giant the second-most important business after his cluster of insurers.

Amid the big selling spree, Berkshire’s cash hoard reached $325.2 billion in the third quarter, an all-time high for the conglomerate. The firm paused buybacks completely during the quarter.
Apple shares are up 16% on the year, trailing the S&P 500’s 20% gain. More

Technology entrepreneurs and investors slammed the U.K. government’s decision to hike capital gains tax, National Insurance contributions and carried interest for VC fund managers.
U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves announced a move to raise CGT as part of a far-reaching announcement on the Labour government’s fiscal spending and tax plans.
Haakon Overli, co-founder of venture capital firm Dawn Capital, said the tax increases could make it harder for the next Nvidia to be built in the U.K.

UK Finance Minister Rachel Reeves makes a speech during the Labour Party Conference that is held at the ACC Liverpool Convention Center in Liverpool, UK on September 23, 2024. 
Anadolu | Getty Images

LONDON — British tech bosses and venture capitalists are questioning whether the country can deliver on its bid to become a global artificial intelligence hub after the government set out plans to increase taxes on businesses.
On Wednesday, Finance Minister Rachel Reeves announced a move to hike capital gains tax (CGT) — a levy on the profit investors make from the sale of an investment — as part of a far-reaching announcement on the Labour government’s fiscal spending and tax plans.

The lower capital gains tax rate was increased to 18% from 10%, while the higher rate climbed to 24% from 20%. Reeves said the increases will help bring in £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) of additional capital to the public purses.
It was also announced that the lifetime limit for business asset disposal relief (BADR) — which offers entrepreneurs a reduced rate on the level of tax paid on capital gains resulting from the sale of all or part of a company — would sit at £1 million.
She added that the rate of CGT applied to entrepreneurs using the BADR scheme will increase to 14% in 2025 and to 18% a year later. Still, Reeves said the U.K. would still have the lowest capital gains tax rate of any European G7 economy.

The hikes were less severe than previously feared — but the push toward a higher tax environment for corporates stoked the concern of several tech executives and investors, with many suggesting the move would lead to higher inflation and a slowdown in hiring.
On top of increases to CGT, the government also raised the rate of National Insurance (NI) contributions, a tax on earnings. Reeves forecasted the move would raise £25 billion per year — by far the largest revenue raising measure in a raft of pledges that were made Wednesday.

Paul Taylor, CEO and co-founder of fintech firm Thought Machine, said that hike to NI rates would lead to an additional £800,000 in payroll spending for his business.
“This is a significant amount for companies like us, which rely on investor capital and already face cost pressures and targets,” he noted.
“Nearly all emerging tech businesses run on investor capital, and this increase sets them back on their path to profitability,” added Taylor, who sits on the lobbying group Unicorn Council for U.K. FinTech. “The U.S. startup and entrepreneurial environment is a model of where the U.K. needs to be.”

Chances of building ‘the next Nvidia’ more slim

Another increase to taxation by way of a rise in the tax rate for carried interest — the level of tax applied to the share of profit a fund manager makes from a private equity investment.

Reeves announced that the rate of tax on carried interest, which is charged on capital gains, would rise to 32%, up from 28% currently.
Haakon Overli, co-founder of European venture capital firm Dawn Capital, said that increases to capital gains tax could make it harder for the next Nvidia to be built in the U.K.
“If we are to have the next NVIDIA built in the UK, it will come from a company born from venture capital investment,” Overli said by email.
“The tax returns from creating such a company, which is worth more than the FTSE 100 put together, would dwarf any gains from increasing the take from venture capital today.”
The government is carrying out further consultation with industry stakeholders on plans to up taxes on carried interest. Anne Glover, CEO of Amadeus Capital, an early investor in Arm, said this was a good thing.
 “The Chancellor has clearly listened to some of the concerns of investors and business leaders,” she said, adding that talks on carried interest reforms must be “equally as productive and engaged.”
Britain also committed to mobilizing £70 billion of investment through the recently formed National Wealth Fund — a state-backed investment platform modelled on sovereign wealth vehicles such as Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

This, Glover added, “aligns with our belief that investment in technology will ultimately lead to long term growth.”
She nevertheless urged the government to look seriously at mandating that pension funds diversify their allocation to riskier assets like venture capital — a common ask from VCs to boost the U.K. tech sector.

Clarity welcomed

Steve Hare, CEO of accounting software firm Sage, said the budget would mean “significant challenges for UK businesses, especially SMBs, who will face the impact of rising employer National Insurance contributions and minimum wage increases in the months ahead.”
Even so, he added that many firms would still welcome the “longer-term certainty and clarity provided, allowing them to plan and adapt effectively.”
Meanwhile, Sean Reddington, founder and CEO of educational technology firm Thrive, said that higher CGT rates mean tech entrepreneurs will face “greater costs when selling assets,” while the rise in employer NI contributions “could impact hiring decisions.”
“For a sustainable business environment, government support must go beyond these fiscal changes,” Reddington said. “While clearer tax communication is positive, it’s unlikely to offset the pressures of heightened taxation and rising debt on small businesses and the self-employed.”
He added, “The crucial question is how businesses can maintain profitability with increased costs. Government support is essential to offset these new burdens and ensure the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit continues to thrive.” More