Deutsche Bank, CoinAnalyst, Block - Market crash, which stocks turn first?

Deutsche Bank - Another annual profit

While the US banks in the current reporting season presented mixed figures, investors in Deutsche Bank still have to wait until January 27 for the announcement of the fourth quarter. Industry insiders expect the Company to report a loss in Q4 due to the group's restructuring costs. However, looking at the full year, the Company will be in the black again. The experts expect a net profit of EUR 1.6 billion for the year. The main driver is the investment business, which contributed around EUR 3.8 billion in pre-tax profit.

After a good year in 2021, the Company hopes that the bank's credit rating will improve again. According to CFO von Moltke, the previous downgrades have caused the group to miss out on earnings in the triple-digit millions. The group's restructuring is 90% complete, and now the focus is on generating 8% returns per year. The news that the Cerberus investment fund intends to sell its stake in Deutsche Bank was the starting signal for the consolidation of the share.

On January 10, the shares were still trading at EUR 12.56. Since the news, the stock has fallen to EUR 11.33, of course also driven by the weak market environment. The share has formed a clear upward trend, only broken with closing prices below EUR 11.49. After two years of no earnings, the prospect of dividends should attract the first dividend investors. As many as three analyst firms put the stock at Buy in January with price targets between EUR 13.50 and EUR 15.00.

CoinAnalyst - Acquires RockStock Equities

CoinAnalyst offers its users a complete sentiment analysis on cryptocurrencies using an artificial intelligence (AI)-based analysis platform provided by German-based Cogia AG. It automatically reads news about cryptos, evaluates social media channels, monitors influencers and thus generates analyses for the 300 most important cryptocurrencies. The number of coins is to be expanded steadily. The Company's goal is to generate 50,000 paying users by 2023.

The demand is growing, as can be seen in the trading volumes of cryptocurrencies, especially as more and more crypto users dive into this new world. The crypto market is also rapidly evolving. The latest craze is NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens), a kind of ownership certificate for something that exists only in the digital world. The Company was an early adopter of this trend, announcing the launch of NFT sentiment analysis in late November. On January 20, the Company followed suit, announcing its planned acquisition of RockStock Equities.

RockStock Equities has its focus on developing a digital link between music artists and their fans. In doing so, fans can purchase NFTs of their favorite artists to promote their careers and access unique music tracks, lyric tracks and more. CoinAnalyst thus secures access to data from musical NFTs and can use this data to offer first-hand data to users of the analytics platform. At the same time, it is opening up an exciting new business area.

The stock recently slipped with bitcoin and is currently trading at CAD 0.15. The market capitalization is a manageable CAD 11 million. If bitcoin picks up again, the share price may also rise.

Block - User numbers and functionalities are growing

Fears of rising interest rates are causing investors to dump their growth stocks by the dozen. Among them is Block, formerly Square. In the case of Block, there is also the fact that bitcoin has also almost halved since November 10. Dorsey, the creator, has ended his involvement with Twitter to concentrate on Block and focus more on blockchain development because that is where he sees the greater potential for the coming years. The Company has invested a lot of money in recent years to launch new products.

A central role is played by the "Cash App," which allows users to trade bitcoin and stocks, set up deposits, and transfer money to any app user. Acquisitions such as Tidal, the music streaming service, are expanding the customer base. Tidal offers users to support artists. Of course, fees are incurred in the process. The functionality within the payment service is growing. That is where the Buy Now, Pay Later acquisition fits in.

User numbers for the Cash App have nearly doubled in the past year. Just recently, the Lightning Network was integrated into the Cash App. So almost all users in the US should be able to send bitcoins to anyone in the world. Even wallets can receive payments as long as they accept the Lightning Network. Conveniently, Block itself has launched the Lightning Network.

In the long run, there is a lot of potential in the stock. Still, the share knows only one direction at the moment, and that is down. It went out of trading last Friday at USD 118.10. As recently as August, the high was close to USD 290.

The coming week will be exciting, as heavyweights like Microsoft and Apple present their figures. If the indices continue to fall, shares of Deutsche Bank and Block are unlikely to rise either, but rather fall. CoinAnalyst does not have as much to fear from this side. It would be more helpful if Bitcoin rises.