This week's interesting finds

This week in charts

Post U.S. election stock market performance

Asian markets – weekly trading flows

Market cap – BATX vs. Magnificent 7

S&P 500 free cash flow yield decline

OpenAI revenue model

OpenAI negative free cash flow projections

Gold inflows vs. crypto outflows

Global Sector fund flows

YTD equity returns

Value vs. growth price performance

China puts brakes on US stock listings for homegrown companies

The rate of China-approved applications for US initial public offerings has slowed noticeably in the past year, falling from 22 in the first half of 2024 to 11 since June. Four people close to the China Securities Regulatory Commission said it intended to impose “tighter control” this year over US IPOs of Chinese companies with small capitalisation and weak fundamentals, viewing them as prone to market manipulation.

China has tightened regulations on offshore capital raising since 2021, following the introduction of new rules on cross-border cyber security and data security, which have also complicated the application process for companies seeking offshore listings.

A record number of Chinese companies went public on US stock exchanges last year, attended by increasing allegations of pump-and-dump schemes and warnings from US regulators to tread cautiously with the investments.

Analysts said the crackdown is Beijing’s latest effort to reduce financial ties with the US amid geopolitical tensions and underscores concerns over excessive speculation on New York-listed Chinese stocks.

The US listing boom of Chinese stocks came as many of them, especially small ones, had in recent years reported wild price swings that sparked concerns over manipulation.

According to a study released in January by Hindenburg Research, a now-shuttered investment research company, 128 Chinese companies have reported irregular price activity not explained by corporate fundamentals shortly after their New York IPOs since 2022.

US regulators, led by the Securities and Exchange Commission, have in recent years issued multiple warnings about pump and dump schemes involving small Chinese companies listed in New York.

In a report last month, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said such scams began to happen not only during the IPO but also weeks or even months afterwards.

China’s stock regulator was aware of the problem and sought to resolve it by raising the bar for local companies’ US listings. The CSRC is spending at least twice as much time as it did a year ago reviewing US listing requests from Chinese companies, led by those with plans to raise $10mn or less, according to bankers and lawyers.

The CSRC’s increased scrutiny has included more questions for IPO applicants ranging from whether stock option programmes may create insider trading to how user data will be protected.

IPO lawyers and bankers said it could take up to a year for clients to get CSRC approval to list in the US. That compared with less than two months a year ago.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities are pushing more large-cap mainland-listed companies to pursue secondary listings in Hong Kong this year.

The shift could lead to a revival in listings worth $20bn in Hong Kong, led by the world’s largest battery maker CATL, marking a possible sharp pick-up in fundraising activities of the city in 2025.

The regulatory tightening looks set to continue this year.

This week’s fun finds

Jenna, from the Relationship Management Team, treated her fellow EdgePointers to the ultimate comfort food, chicken and waffles! Word on the street was that the sauces served alongside brought it to the next level.

Paper or Porcelain? Saori Matsushita Folds Delicate Ceramic into Playful Objects

It might be tempting to throw one of Saori Matsushita’s paper airplanes across the room, but we promise you the landing would be less than graceful.

From her Seattle studio, Matsushita transforms delicate sheets of porcelain into vases, mugs, and sculptures that appear as if they were folded from paper. Punctured with binder holes and the fringed edge of a torn-out sheet, the functional objects bear the iconic blue lines of a school notebook. Other works are similarly deceptive, like the cloth sack or collared-shirt vessels that capture the folds, bends, and bulges of fabric in ceramic.

To create these pieces, Matsushita utilizes nerikomi, a Japanese pottery technique that involves layering colored bodies of clay together and then cutting them to reveal a patterned section. Stripes of blue and pink appear through stacking slabs rather than the glazing process, and the artist builds most works by hand.

This week's interesting finds

This week in charts

Asset class returns by year (including 2025 YTD)

Europe-focused equity fund outflows

Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries

Median age of homebuyers increasing

S&P 500 Index profit margins

Equity market capitalization

Homebuilders vs. S&P 500 Index

S&P 500 Index Q4 2024 earnings

Trump’s Tariffs

European outperformance

European stocks outpace Wall Street since Donald Trump took office

European stocks have outpaced the US in the month since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, as hopes rise that the region might escape a worst-case scenario trade war.

The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index has gained 5.2 per cent since January 17, the last trading day before Trump re-entered the White House, while on Wall Street the S&P 500 has risen 2.5 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has advanced 1.7 per cent.

The unexpectedly strong performance of European indices has been driven by Trump’s decision not to impose immediate tariffs on the EU, as well as the prospect of peace talks in Ukraine, said analysts.

The gains come after a prolonged period of Europe underperforming the US, as a huge rally in Big Tech stocks lifted Wall Street in recent years. Trump’s election was the most recent catalyst, pushing European equities to lag the US by the widest margin on record, amid expectations of a bruising trade war.

Europe’s recent strong performance comes despite signs of stagnation in the continent’s major economies and worries over the region’s longer-term security as the US threatens to pull back military support.

The rally has been helped by European fund managers increasing their allocations since the start of the year, with a survey this week showing that the proportion saying the region’s stocks were undervalued was at a six-year high.

Analysts at UBS last week upgraded their allocation to continental Europe to overweight, citing the tailwind of lower energy prices in the event of an end to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, looser fiscal policy and stronger corporate earnings.

Hong Kong has been the best-performing major index since Trump’s inauguration, with the Hang Seng index rising 15 per cent since January 20, led by a rally in Chinese technology stocks listed in the territory following the DeepSeek shock.

China’s mainland CSI 300, however, has advanced just 3 per cent. The rest of Asia has been more flat, with Japan’s broad Topix up 2 per cent and India’s Nifty 50 down 1 per cent.

However, some analysts expressed doubt over whether Europe’s performance could last through the year, especially if US tariffs were simply delayed rather than diluted.

Trump has warned that imports from Europe may be next in line after the US moved to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and an additional 10 per cent levy against Chinese goods. 

This week’s fun find

On a Mission to Heal Gila Monsters

By any measure, the diabetes drug Ozempic has been a blockbuster, racking up billions of dollars in annual sales. In the United States alone, pharmacies fill millions of prescriptions for Ozempic and related drugs, which have become popular for their weight-loss effects, every month. 

But in the beginning, before the celebrity endorsements and the think pieces and the global supply crunch, there was just a strange, venomous lizard with a flair for intermittent fasting. The Gila monster, which is native to the deserts of North America, can survive on just a few meals a year, thanks to a digestion-slowing hormone in its venom.

The discovery of this hormone paved the way for Ozempic, making the Gila monster an enormously profitable gift to modern medicine. And last summer one particular Gila monster, a former pet named Pebbles, needed medicine in return.

This week's interesting finds

Notice of minimum investment amount increase for the EdgePoint Canadian Portfolio

EdgePoint Investment Group, Inc. has announced today that it is changing the minimum amount of an initial investment in the EdgePoint Canadian Portfolio (the “Fund”) from $20,000 (the “Previous Minimum”) to $100,000 (the “New Minimum”).

Click here to learn more.

This week in charts

Bitcoin and gold ETFs cumulative flows

Asset returns and volatility

60/40 portfolio

Valuations vs. return on equity

European equity fund flows

Equity issuance by type

Magnificent 7 annual capital expenditure

Inflation discussions

U.S. trade partners

U.S. household debt

Variable mortgage rates

China’s tech stocks enter bull market after DeepSeek breakthrough

A benchmark for Chinese technology stocks has risen more than 20 per cent in the past month, entering a bull market as investors pile into the country’s internet companies following DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence breakthrough. 

The Hang Seng Tech index, which tracks the 30 largest tech groups listed in Hong Kong, is up 25 per cent from its 2025 low on January 13. It has outpaced the Nasdaq 100’s 4.4 per cent increase and a 0.5 per cent decline for the “Magnificent Seven” US tech stocks over the past month. 

The positive movement is a boon to China’s markets, which have been buffeted by concerns over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, a mainland property slump and deflationary pressures in the Chinese economy. Mainland China’s broader CSI 300 index is up just 4 per cent in the past month. 

DeepSeek stunned Silicon Valley in late January when it released a large language model (LLM) that it said was built on a bootstrapped budget, raising questions about the need for huge investment in AI. 

The news led US tech stocks to a sharp drop on January 27. Nvidia set a record for the biggest one-day loss in market capitalisation, with $589bn wiped from its market value.

Conversely, Chinese tech shares boomed. Cloud computing and tech hardware companies that stand to benefit from AI innovations have led the recent rally. 

They include Alibaba, consumer electronics group Xiaomi, search engine developer Baidu and electric-car maker BYD, which are up 43 per cent, 34 per cent, 13 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively, in the past month. 

E-commerce platforms JD.com and Meituan have also advanced 24 per cent and 11 per cent, boosted by relatively strong consumption data from the lunar new year holiday and growing expectations of large-scale fiscal stimulus from Beijing this year.

The broader Hang Seng index is up 15 per cent in the same period. Data from the Stock Connect programme, which allows mainland traders to buy Hong Kong stocks, indicates heightened interest among Chinese investors, with average daily turnover in February up two-thirds from January and three times higher than February 2024. 

Analysts said investors were boosted by the belief that Chinese development of LLMs was advancing and consumer-facing companies would rapidly adopt them.

This week’s fun find

100 Small Acts of Love

Sometimes love needs a grand gesture: a bouquet of roses or a big night out. But strong relationships also need regular care and attention, so we asked New York Times readers to tell us how they show their affection day-in and day-out, all year long.

This week's interesting finds

We’re hiring

Specifically, we want to add a Product Manager to the Investment Analytics Team in our Toronto office.

We're always looking for talented people who can help us achieve our goals and we understand that extraordinary human ability is a scarce resource in high demand. If you think you've got some and are interested in our company, please send your resume to: WeAreGrowing@edgepointwealth.com.

You can view the posting on our website here.

This week in charts

Capital expenditures

AI discussions

Canadian mortgages

Maturity dates for outstanding Canadian mortgages

U.S. interest payments

Historical gold bull markets

China exports to the U.S.

Historical U.S. Treasury yields

Tech stocks

S&P 500 Index returns over various time periods

B.C. fast-tracking 18 resource projects to reduce reliance on United States

B.C. Premier David Eby's office has shared a list of 18 resource projects that he says the province will be fast-tracking in order to reduce its reliance on trade with the United States.

They are a blend of energy, mining and critical mineral projects that are already on the books, but which the government says it will be working to expedite through the approval process.

In an email, Eby's office said that combined, the projects are worth approximately $20 billion and will employ 8,000 people across the province. Eby previously said the focus is on resource-based communities where the threat of U.S.-imposed tariffs on Canadian exports is likely to hurt the most. 

Some of the projects have faced pushback, in particular the Eskay Creek and Red Chris mine projects which have faced challenges from Alaskan-based Indigenous governments who say the projects will impact their territory. The Highland Valley mine expansion is also facing opposition from the Skeetchestn and Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc bands in the B.C. Interior.

Dix said the province says it will continue to engage and consult with Indigenous groups impacted by the projects, noting that several — notably the wind power projects — will be at least 50 per cent owned by First Nations.

And while they have faced opposition, the mining projects also have support from Indigenous groups: the Highland Valley Copper expansion has support from the Citxw Nlaka'pamux Assembly, the Lower Nicola Indian Band and the Kanaka Bar Indian Band. Likewise, changes to the Red Chris mine can only be made with the consent of the Tahltan Nation, which has also voiced its support for the Eskay Creek project.

Dix also said many of the projects are aimed at helping B.C. reduce its carbon emissions.

Preparation for 'worst-case scenario'

The premier first revealed plans to streamline permitting for the projects last week after meeting with his newly-formed provincial task force on economic security and trade following a promise from U.S. President Donald Trump that he would be imposing a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods sold in the United States, with the exception of energy which would have a 10 per cent tariff.

Despite Canada securing a 30-day delay on that tariff this week, Eby says it is clear that British Columbia must become less economically tethered to its southern neighbour.

B.C. exports to the United States

B.C. has paused some of its other retaliatory measures, including pulling alcohol from Republican-led States off the shelves of provincially-run liquor stores and working with B.C.-based companies to divert the supply of critical minerals and energy destined for the United States to other jurisdictions.

However, Eby says those measures are still on the table should the tariffs materialize.

This week’s fun finds

Hennie from the Relationship Management Team wanted to “kick-off” Superbowl weekend by ordering in pizza for his fellow partners. Perfect way to end the week. A good pie never disappoints!

The 25 Best Super Bowl Ads of the Past 25 Years

The Super Bowl is the premier stage for advertisers, a showcase for the best creativity and biggest brand ambitions. To mark Super Bowl 2025, ADWEEK looks back on the best Big Game commercials from the past quarter century.