Infineon, Globex Mining, Volkswagen AG - Excellent general conditions

Infineon suffers from forecast cut

The semiconductor manufacturer from Neubiberg in the district of Munich had a very unsuccessful start to the new stock market year. With a weekly drop of more than 7% to EUR 35.13, Infineon was one of the underperformers on Germany's leading index, the DAX, which recorded a roughly 2% decrease in the first week of January.

In addition to the weak market environment, one of the leading suppliers in the semiconductor industry was hit by negative news from its peer group in the US.

Thus, the supplier to Porsche and Audi, Mobileye, surprised investors by lowering its revenue forecast for the current year, 2024. Revenue is expected to be significantly lower due to the reduction of customers' full inventories. The technology manufacturer for autonomous vehicles estimates its turnover for 2024 to be between USD 1.83 and 1.96 billion. This compares to previous forecasts of USD 2.58 billion.

On the stock market, investors reacted with a sell-off of over 25% at the Israel-based company. Experts believe that the weak sales forecast from Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel, could spill over to the entire automotive chip industry, meaning that lower revenues can also be expected from the peer group. As a result, companies from the sector, such as Texas Instruments, Wolfspeed and Intel, lost disproportionately.

Meanwhile, the chart picture for Infineon has deteriorated further. After slipping to a weekly low of EUR 33.70 on Thursday, the share was able to stabilize in the short term. Nevertheless, a fall below the support level of EUR 33.27 would generate a striking sell signal. The chart also faces headwinds from the MACD and RSI indicators, both of which have turned to "Sell".

Globex Mining - Favorable starting position

The conditions for further price rises in the commodities incubator are currently better than ever. The precious metal gold recently reached new all-time highs, copper has been on an upward trend for months, and most critical industrial metals are bottoming out after several months of correction. As a result, the intrinsic value of the portfolio, which contains over 230 projects, is likely to have increased significantly in recent weeks.

Overall, the Company, which has been built up since the 1980s by commodities veteran Jack Stock, is broadly diversified. It manages 118 precious metal projects with gold, silver, platinum and palladium deposits, 62 properties with base metals and a further 52 deposits with industrial metals such as lithium and cobalt. More than 100 properties have been transferred to licensees, whereby Globex Mining receives recurring payments in the form of cash, shares or options. This ensures a continuous cash flow, so that the Canadians currently have cash and short-term liquid investments of around CAD 25 million. In comparison, the current market capitalization is CAD 49.83 million.

Globex Mining was able to further increase its cash position through the sale of a total of 6 gold projects to O3 Mining. The price is set at CAD 2 million, with an initial transfer of CAD 150,000 in cash and 1.186 million in O3 Mining shares. Globex Mining has agreed to a holding period of 6 and 12 months for the stock position, splitting it in half. In addition, Globex Mining will receive future royalty payments averaging 2% of every metal produced from the property, whereby O3 Mining could buy out 1% of the royalty agreement through a one-time payment of CAD 1.5 million.

Volkswagen AG - Tailwind from the US

In contrast to the weakening overall market, the preferred shares of the Wolfsburg-based company were in the green with a gain of around 1.5%. The car giant is thus moving closer to the 200-day line at EUR 114.49. If it were to be exceeded, the next significant hurdles would await in the EUR 133.42 range.

The German carmaker received a tailwind from the US with the publication of its sales figures for the fourth quarter. The core brand Volkswagen recorded a 39.9% increase in sales to 96,486. The sales figures for the full year 2023 amounted to 329,029 vehicles, an increase of 9.3% compared to the previous year.

The Company also achieved a future-oriented milestone with its investment in QuantumScape in the development of solid-state batteries. The US company, which exploded by more than 43% on the Nasdaq following its publication, significantly exceeded the requirements in the so-called A-sample test and successfully completed more than 1,000 charging cycles. For an electric car with 500-600 km according to the WLTP range test conditions, this corresponds to a purely mathematical mileage of more than half a million km. At the same time, the test showed that the cell had hardly aged at all, still retaining 95% of its capacity at the end. This information was confirmed by the VW subsidiary Powerco.

In contrast to Infineon, which was dragged down by a competitor's sales warning, Volkswagen had a promising start to the year. Globex Mining strengthened its strong cash position further by selling several claims.