Asia stocks set for mixed start
Asian stocks looked set for a mixed start Friday as Chinese technology shares struggle, contrasting with a rally in their U.S. counterparts that propelled Wall Street equities to a record high.
Futures for Japan and Australia were steady, while Hong Kong's slid. A tumble in the likes of e-commerce firm $Alibaba (BABA.US)$ and video-streaming platform operator $Bilibili (BILI.US)$ hurt an index of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks. But megacap U.S. tech jumped, taking the $NASDAQ 100 Index (.NDX.US)$ and $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ to new peaks, in a choppy session ahead of Friday's options expiration.
Salad chain Sweetgreen attains $6 billion value in debut
$Sweetgreen (SG.US)$ soared 77% in its trading debut after raising $364 million in an upsized initial public offering, more tripling its valuation from a funding round less than a year ago.
The IPO is the the 14th this year in the U.S. by food and beverage companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Nine of those are trading below their offering price after listing at valuations that proved optimistic amid labor shortages, rising prices and a rocky earnings season for the sector.
Robinhood, Citadel win dismissal of meme-stock lawsuit
Citadel and $Robinhood (HOOD.US)$ won dismissal of a proposed class-action lawsuit brought by retail investors who accused the firms of colluding during January's meme-stock frenzy.
U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga in Miami said that the plaintiffs failed to show there was any agreement between Citadel Securities and Robinhood to act in concert. In a Wednesday ruling, she dismissed the case without prejudice, giving the investor group until Dec. 20 to possibly file an amended complaint.
Ford, GM step into chip business
$Ford Motor (F.US)$ on Thursday morning outlined a strategic agreement with U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturer $GlobalFoundries (GFS.US)$ to develop chips, a pact that could eventually lead to joint U.S. production.
$General Motors (GM.US)$ later said it was forging ties with some of the biggest names in semiconductors—including $Qualcomm (QCOM.US)$ and $NXP Semiconductors (NXPI.US)$—and has agreements in place to co-develop and manufacture computer chips.
Macy's hires adviser to study separation of e-commerce business
$Macy's (M.US)$ said it hired consulting firm AlixPartners to evaluate whether it makes sense to spin off its e-commerce operations, a move that comes amid pressure from an activist investor to separate the fast-growing digital segment from the department-store chain's physical stores.
Macy's announcement came as it posted another quarter of strong sales growth Thursday, with plans to launch a new online marketplace through its website for third-party sellers. Shares rose 21%.
Buffett-backed indian fintech giant Paytm stumbles in market debut
Shares in the owner of Indian mobile-payments company Paytm fell sharply on their first day of trading, after it sold about $2.5 billion of stock in the country's largest initial public offering.
Stock in One97 Communications Ltd. dropped 27% from its IPO price of 2,150 rupees, the equivalent of $28.95, to close Thursday at 1,564 rupees.
TikTok usage surpassed Instagram this year among kids aged 12 to 17, Forrester survey says
More Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 are using TikTok than Instagram on a weekly basis, according to survey findings published by Forrester on Thursday. $Meta Platforms (FB.US)$ said last month that it was trying to appeal better to younger users with its services, including Instagram.
"We heard from Gen Z youth that they find TikTok to be funnier and more positive versus other social media platforms," said Mike Proulx, an analyst at Forrester.
Crypto 'hypergrowth' can beat inflation, says iCapital's Anastasia Amoroso
With higher inflation and more modest stock gains likely looming ahead in the new year, Anastasia Amoroso, chief investment strategist at iCapital Network, says investors should be looking at 2021's standout asset class: cryptocurrencies.
Amoroso noted that cryptocurrencies have risen this year by "something like 200%," and said that Bitcoin has "classic inflation-hedging characteristics," including its limited supply alongside growing demand.
Source: Bloomberg, WSJ, CNBC

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According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Chipmaker GlobalFoundries is marketing 33 million shares while Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., its major shareholder, plans to sell 22 million shares.
Mubadala currently owns 100% of the company and “continue to have substantial control after this offering.”
GlobalFoundries plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol GFS. It plans to raise as much as $2.6 billion in a U.S. initial public offering. At the top of that range,it would have a market value of $25 billionbased on the outstanding shares listed in its filing.
The offering is being led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Credit Suisse.
Business Overview
$GlobalFoundries (GFS.US)$is one of the world’s leading semiconductor foundries. The company was created by purchasing the manufacturing operations of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in 2009 and later combining it with Singapore’s Chartered Semiconductor.
According to Gartner,in 2020, the company was the third largest foundry in the world based on external sales.
GlobalFoundries previously gave up on the kind of leading-edge production that would match the capabilities of Taiwan Semiconductor or Samsung.Instead,it's serving the market for less advanced chips, which are increasingly critical to carmakers and other industries.
GlobalFoundries has over50ecosystem partners spanning IP, electronic design automation, outsourced assembly and test and design services. Building on an existing library of more than4,000IP titles, it currently has more than950IP titles in active development across26process nodes and34IP partners.
The company has built deep strategic partnerships witha broad base of more than 200 customers as of December 31, 2020, many of whom are the global leaders in their field.
In the first six months of 2021, the top ten customers, based on wafer shipment volume, included Qualcomm, MediaTek, NXP Semiconductors, Qorvo, Cirrus Logic, Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”), Skyworks Solutions, Murata Manufacturing, Samsung Electronics and Broadcom.
The company attracted a large share of single-sourced products and long-term supply agreements. As of the date of the company's prospectus,the aggregate lifetime revenue commitment reflected by these agreements amounted to more than $19.5 billion.
A key measure of GlobalFoundries's position as a strategic partner to the customers is the mix of wafer shipment volume attributable to single-sourced business (Single-sourced products are defined as those that can only be manufactured with GlobalFoundries's technology and cannot be manufactured elsewhere without significant customer redesigns).It represented approximately61% of wafer shipment volume in 2020, up from 47% in 2018.
Financial Performance
Revenue at GlobalFoundries dropped last year by 17% to $4.85 billion. GlobalFoundries said the reason is that it divested a business that brought in $391 million in 2019, and more broadly the company shifted contractual terms with most of its customers, changing how and when it recognizes revenue.
In the first half of 2021, revenue climbed by 13% from a year earlier to just over $3 billion.
Click to view the prospectus

$Nikko AM STI ETF (G3B.SG)$ up up!

$Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ 
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index hit a record high seven times in a row-the longest continuous increase since 1997. Last Friday, Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average, which were once in trouble, also hit new highs.
For companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, analysts now expect the profits in the second quarter to be 64% higher than the profits in the second quarter of 2020, which is undoubtedly seriously hindered by the COVID blockade.
Due to our sudden national blockade, the performance in the second quarter was very strong, contrary to the weakest single quarter since the Great Depression.
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