January 2016

[admin]

One stock we're looking at (but only looking as we think it's a bit early still) is Ctrip (CTRP). It is tanking today on the following news:

Ctrip (CTRP -4.3%) says it's authorized to invest $1.3B in cash and issue 5.4M ordinary shares (equal to 21.6M ADS') via "limited partnership capital contribution or other financing arrangements, in several non-U.S. investment entities, which are managed or owned by parties unaffiliated with each other and unaffiliated with the Company and are dedicated to investing in businesses in China."

Ctrip adds the entities "will acquire a significant minority stake" in Qunar (QUNR+12.6%) from Qunar shareholders, via privately-negotiated deals involving cash and/or Ctrip shares as payment.

The news comes less than three months after Ctrip announced a deal to buy a major stake in Qunar (its biggest rival) from Baidu. The deal left Ctrip owning 45%of Qunar's voting interests, and Baidu 25% of Ctrip's voting interests.

Last week, Ctrip announced it's investing $180M in Indian online travel firm MakeMyTrip.

We're not sure this is so negative, warranting a 5.6% selloff at the moment, but we'll keep an eye on this one as it is most definitely a stock from the 'new' China, the services and consumer spending part that is actually still doing well.