LiveWire

South Korea’s largest conglomerate posted operating profit of 12.5 trillion won ($11 billion) in the three months ended June, beating the 11 trillion won average of estimates. Sales were 63 trillion won, according to preliminary results released Wednesday. The company said the earnings reflected a one-time gain related to its display business, without breaking out divisional performance any further. It will provide net income and finalized figures when it releases full results on July 29.

Money is flowing into energy-related ETFs, more than in the 10 previous years and triple the amount seen in the first half of 2020. 60% of the year's inflow went to funds heavily invested in fossil fuel companies. Behind this move, the strongest rally in gas and oil prices since 2009, as the world turned off and back on again.

Li Ning and Nata have been rumoured to see yet more momentum in the short-run as the sentiment to buy homegrown brands will continue to surge. Shares of Xtep jumped as much as 9.3% to a record high Wednesday, while Li Ning climbed as much as 5.8%, 361 Degrees 5.4% and Anta 2.3%. The stocks were probably rising on positive sentiment ahead of Anta’s Investor Day on Thursday. The picture may change after the announcement of first-half earnings, as investors may seek cheaper shares with some Chinese sportswear stocks looking expensive. Li Ning is trading at 55 times estimated earnings for the next 12 months, while Anta is at 44 times. Nike and Adidas trade at around 35 times.

After having been one of the first movers in the business, Amazon's Web Services is now far ahead of the pack. The worldwide market share of AWS is of about 32% in the first quarter of 2021, according to Synergy Research Group. Even #2 (Microsoft) and #3 (Google) combined do not reach a market share of the same size. The industry is on its way for a $150 billion total revenue for the year, and the 8 largest providers control 80% of the market. 

Right at the time when Jeff Bezos decides to leave his role of company CEO, it is interesting to look back at Amazon's past years. And it is quite impressive. The company was founded almost 25 years ago on July 16th, 1995. First, it claimed to be "earth's biggest bookstore". If that seemed presumptuous, it should not have: Amazon is now not only the biggest bookstore in the world, it is simply, the biggest store in the world, period. Bezos continuously decided to sacrifice short-term gains for long-term growth, with a 70 years road map ahead. This long-term strategy has paid off big time, turning Amazon into a $1.7 trillion company.