Tesla fell below $500 billion
Tesla (TSLA. US) announced 10% layoffs globally on Monday, and the announcement of the departure of key executive, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering, Drew Baglino, who has been with the company for 18 years, further dampened investor sentiment towards the company, with the stock falling about 4% at one point on Tuesday and its market value falling below $500 billion, leading the decline in the new energy vehicle sector.
Tesla is down about 38% this year. Tesla's share price is the second-largest decline in the S&P 500 in 2024, wiping more than $290 billion from its market value since the end of the year. Since the end of April last year, the company's market capitalization has not fallen below $500 billion.
It is understood that the company's troubles began in October last year, when the company warned that demand for electric vehicles was starting to slow, but the extent of that weakness did not become apparent until this month when Tesla reported first-quarter sales that fell sharply below analysts' expectations. The numbers reignited investor concerns about Tesla's growth trajectory, followed by news that the company intends to abandon plans to produce cheaper electric vehicles and instead focus on building so-called robotaxis.
Musk said the company would launch a robo-taxi in August, a shift that comes at a time when Tesla's profit outlook is rapidly dimming, as the company has repeatedly lowered the price of its cars to attract buyers.
JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman said: "The mass layoffs announced on Monday amount to a reduction in staff capacity, so there should now be no doubt that the drop in deliveries is the result of falling demand, not supply." ”
While the lack of demand plagues EV makers around the world, it's a more dire situation for Tesla than other automakers. That's because Elon Musk-led companies have a huge valuation premium, in part because of their potential to dominate the EV industry in the future. Even Musk has said that the company will have "essentially zero value" unless it can solve the problem of self-driving cars.
Still, analysts and investors say that while building fully autonomous vehicles is critical to the company's prospects, making affordable electric vehicles is also important to drive growth, especially since most experts agree that self-driving cars could take decades to grow.
Shanghai City Supermarket was completely closed
Shanghai City Shop, which has been in operation for 29 years, announced on the 16th that it would cease all store operations.
On April 16, a notice for Shanghai City Supermarket said: In recent years, the operation of Shanghai City Supermarket has been difficult, and it is still difficult to continue despite a variety of self-help measures, and now the company has decided to dissolve and decided to stop the operation of all stores in Shanghai City Supermarket from April 16.
The above-mentioned notice also stated that since April 16, the company has entered a state of suspension and liquidation, the salary of employees will be calculated until April 15, 2024, the social insurance will be paid until April 2024, and the severance compensation (if any) will be properly resolved in accordance with the law after liquidation.
According to public information, Shanghai City Supermarket was founded in the 90s of the last century, and its main business is the world's flavor food, more than 80% of the goods are imported goods, and it is one of the largest imported food and daily necessities supermarkets in Shanghai and even the Yangtze River Delta. In 2008, Shanghai Chengchao went out of Shanghai and opened its first store in Beijing Liangmaqiao, and in 2013, Beijing Fangcaodi store opened.
Shanghai City Supermarket is one of the first imported supermarkets to be well-known to Shanghainese, and the egg rolls in the store, which can be called the "first generation of Internet celebrities", are very popular with diners.
At present, China's supermarket categories are becoming richer and more competitive, and many traditional supermarkets are gradually withdrawing, and Wal-Mart, Carrefour and other cities are withdrawing. At the same time, the rise of snacks, fresh food and other sub-categories has weakened the demand for comprehensive supermarkets.
Recently, Wal-Mart, RT-Mart, Yonghui, China Resources Vanguard and many other well-known chain brands have partially closed their stores. According to a recent retail and e-commerce industry research report released by Fung Group, Yonghui Supermarket has closed at least 16 stores this year. "In recent years, many supermarkets and even hypermarkets have indeed closed stores. Bao Yuezhong, a new retail expert and chairman of Baum Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd., analyzed that this is mainly because the current retail market structure has undergone great changes. Specifically, the current retail market has evolved into an omni-channel model, with an increasing proportion of online retail models, which has put pressure on many supermarket companies that rely on offline operations. In addition, in recent years, many new formats have emerged, such as some specialty store models, which have also stolen the market share of supermarkets.
14.14% of mainland citizens have scientific literacy
On the 16th, the China Association for Science and Technology released the results of the 13th Chinese citizens' scientific literacy sampling survey in Beijing. The results show that in 2023, the proportion of mainland citizens with scientific literacy will reach 14.14%, an increase of 1.21 percentage points over 2022, showing an accelerated growth trend.
The survey covered 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), 333 prefecture-level administrative units and 86 municipalities directly under the central government, and the survey subjects were citizens aged 18-69 (excluding active duty soldiers), and a total of 289,000 valid samples were recovered. The survey is approved by the survey and statistics system of the National Bureau of Statistics, and the program is jointly designed by the Institute of Statistical Science under the National Bureau of Statistics, the Social Opinion Survey Center and the China Institute of Science Popularization under the China Association for Science and Technology.
The results show that in 2023, the proportion of urban residents and rural residents with scientific literacy will reach 17.25% and 9.16%, respectively, an increase of 1.31 and 1.20 percentage points compared with 2022, and the growth rate will be 8.22% and 15.08%, respectively. The imbalance in the development of scientific literacy of urban and rural residents has been further alleviated.
In terms of regional development, the results show that in 2023, the proportion of citizens with scientific literacy in the eastern, central and western regions will reach 16.39%, 13.12% and 11.51% respectively, an increase of 1.08, 1.15 and 1.24 percentage points respectively compared with 2022, and the gap between the scientific literacy level of citizens in the eastern, central and western regions will narrow for the first time.
The results also found that women's scientific literacy continued to improve rapidly, and the gender gap was further narrowed. In 2023, the proportion of male and female citizens with scientific literacy will reach 15.66% and 12.53% respectively, an increase of 0.89 and 1.55 percentage points respectively over 2022, and the gender gap will be narrowed by 0.66 percentage points.
(WeChat public account "Caizhi Toutiao" is integrated from the Financial Associated Press, National Business Daily, Beijing Daily, etc.)
Editor: Yuan Kai
Proofreading: Fenghua
Review: Gong Zimo