January 7th, 2025 | 07:00 CET
MicroStrategy, Almonty Industries and XPeng make headlines
The markets continued to rise in the first trading week of the new year. The DAX has managed to climb past the 20,000-point mark. Bitcoin is also working on reclaiming the magical USD 100,000 mark. For some market experts, this is just the beginning of an unstoppable run for the world's largest cryptocurrency. Less covered in the media but significantly more critical is the Western world's focus on securing vital raw materials. One company is on the launchpad and could soar to new heights after production begins.
time to read: 3 minutes
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Author:
Stefan Feulner
ISIN:
MICROSTRATEG.A NEW DL-001 | US5949724083 , ALMONTY INDUSTRIES INC. | CA0203981034 , XPeng Inc ADR | US98422D1054
Table of contents:
"[...] While tungsten has always played an important role in the chip industry, it is now being added to batteries for e-cars. [...]" Lewis Black, CEO, Almonty Industries
Author
Stefan Feulner
The native Franconian has more than 20 years of stock exchange experience and a broadly diversified network.
He is passionate about analyzing a wide variety of business models and investigating new trends.
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MicroStrategy – The winner takes it all
Founded by Michael Saylor, the Company started out as a software manufacturer. It currently owns a total of 446,000 units or more than 2% of all available Bitcoins, making it the largest hodler of the virtual currency. But that is not the end of the story. The plans for increasing the Bitcoin reserves are huge.
The latest coup in the aggressive investment strategy is implementing a capital increase with a volume of up to USD 2 billion. As the Company announced, the placement will be carried out by one or more public offerings of perpetual preferred shares, which may include features such as convertibility into Class A common shares and the payment of cash dividends.
Days earlier, Supervisory Board Chairman Saylor had already published a plan to raise USD 21 billion in equity and USD 21 billion in fixed-income instruments, including debt securities, convertible bonds, and preferred shares, over the next three years, which would ultimately be used for further Bitcoin purchases.
Investor reactions to MicroStrategy's shares were positive, with the stock benefiting particularly from a renewed surge in Bitcoin. The stock closed the week with a gain of over 13%, ending at USD 339.66. In pre-market trading, the share is already being priced at around USD 345.
Almonty Industries – Starting signal
The current hype surrounding both stocks and cryptocurrencies is pushing the pressing global issues into the background. The growing geopolitical conflicts could disrupt supply chains faster than anticipated. And the dependence on China for raw materials such as lithium, rare earths or tungsten is overwhelming. The Western world urgently needs to find alternatives to avoid being cut off from basic materials in the future.
Almonty Industries is one company in the Western world that is raising hopes. The Canadian company specializes in the production of tungsten, a strategically important metal used in the electronics, aerospace and automotive industries, among others. Around 85% of this critical metal, which has the highest melting point of all pure metals, is currently produced in China.
Almonty Industries plans to break this quasi-monopoly and is about to start production at the Sangdong mine in South Korea, once the largest tungsten mine in the world. Mining is scheduled to start in March, with an initial annual output of around 5,000 tons per year, with the quota to be expanded in the coming years.
Almonty's shares broke through the CAD 1 mark last week. Analysts at Sphene Capital still see considerable potential remaining. In their latest study, they raised the target price to CAD 3.21.
XPeng – Moving forward with Volkswagen
The cooperation between the Chinese electric automaker XPeng and Volkswagen has been in place for quite some time. As early as next year, the two companies want to launch jointly developed battery-powered vehicles on the market. In addition, the Wolfsburg-based company has a 4.99% stake in XPeng. Now, the partnership has been expanded to include charging infrastructure.
With over 20,000 charging points in more than 420 cities, the joint venture plans to make its charging services mutually accessible. The aim is to further promote electric mobility in China, the world's largest automotive market.
The memorandum of understanding published on Monday covers the mutual use of existing charging infrastructure and the joint construction of co-branded ultra-fast charging stations. These will significantly reduce charging times and improve the efficiency of the entire network.
With the expanded cooperation, Volkswagen aims to strengthen its competitiveness in China further. "China is the world's largest market for electric vehicles. This partnership will help us to offer innovative and affordable solutions," a Volkswagen spokesperson emphasized.
The leading Bitcoin hodler, MicroStrategy, plans to increase its holdings significantly. XPeng is expanding its cooperation with Volkswagen. The production start of the tungsten mine in South Korea by Almonty Industries is imminent. Analysts are extremely confident about the price potential.
Conflict of interest
Pursuant to §85 of the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG), we point out that Apaton Finance GmbH as well as partners, authors or employees of Apaton Finance GmbH (hereinafter referred to as "Relevant Persons") may hold shares or other financial instruments of the aforementioned companies in the future or may bet on rising or falling prices and thus a conflict of interest may arise in the future. The Relevant Persons reserve the right to buy or sell shares or other financial instruments of the Company at any time (hereinafter each a "Transaction"). Transactions may, under certain circumstances, influence the respective price of the shares or other financial instruments of the Company.
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