Investor Education

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, posted a selfie of his avatar on Facebook and Instagram to celebrate the launch of its virtual community platform Horizon Worlds in France and Spain. However, netizens mocked the metaverse platform in the photo for looking inferior to the PS1 games released in 1990s. Zuckerberg later conceded the photo was a rushed selfie he took.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and quantitative tightening have triggered a massive reallocation of global capital, strengthening the U.S. dollar while weakening the Japanese yen. U.S. Treasuries have been heavily sold off, leading to a crypto market crash where cryptocurrencies once dubbed the “hedge currencies” are now seen as moving in tandem with the Nasdaq. Bitcoin prices have plummeted. Ironically, even the stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) collapsed, falling far below its $1 peg and stoking market panic.

I recently discussed with a friend how Netflix seems to lack many exciting new shows and movies lately, with fewer reality programs, staler content ideas, and recommendations flooded with Korean productions. To be honest, apart from some well-known Korean dramas over the years, I don’t have much interest in what Netflix is recommending. Sure enough, Netflix recently released its disappointing performance, losing 200,000 subscribers in Q1 this year. Industry observers have analyzed the reasons behind the shocking user number decline. But the cause was already spelled out by its CEO Reed Hastings in a letter to shareholders back in 2018.

Sony’s PlayStation 5, released over a year ago, has sold over 13 million units globally, announced the company last October. However, due to product shortages, the original price of around HK$4,000 has been marked up by scalpers in Hong Kong to as high as US$6,000. Undoubtedly, according to the foreign media AllTopEverything, Sony ranked first among the top 10 highest grossing video game companies of 2020. Coming in third was Nintendo, which released Pokémon Go and then Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the pandemic. The latter has become very popular in Hong Kong. Japan’s video game culture has long been leading the way globally.