Nike cuts inventory pile by roughly $400m in Q2

In today’s top stories, Bitcoin miner Core Scientific has filed for bankruptcy in the wake of November’s FTX collapse. The latter is facing customers hoping to recoup $1.6bn worth of crypto assets. Chinese investors will soon have access more foreign companies. Nike reduces its inventory pile and rallies 13% on markets, while Cathie Woods buys over 46,000 Tesla shares.

Bitcoin miner faces bankruptcy

A group of creditors in FTX’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, who had been holding a combined $1.6bn worth of crypto assets on the exchange, are hoping to be among the first to recoup payments, according to a Financial Times report. Contagion from the FTX collapse continues to spill over into the wider industry as bitcoin miner Core Scientific [CORZ] has reportedly filed its Chapter 11 just days after creditor B.Riley offered it a $72m lifeline.

Chinese investors to access more foreign companies

China is to allow mainland investors to access foreign companies already listed on the Hang Seng through the Stock Connect scheme with Hong Kong. The changes being made should also see hundreds of Chinese small-caps being made available to investors in Hong Kong – firms must have a minimum market cap of 5bn renminbi. “Southbound inflows will continue to rise after the scheme expansion,” Zhang Qi, analyst at Chinese brokerage Haitong Securities, told the Financial Times.

Budget retail recession plays

There’s been little Christmas cheer for consumers as inflation continues to eat into wages and disposable income. Consumers are “vulnerable” as the spectre of recession looms ever larger, Steven Glass, managing director of Pella Funds Management, told CNBC. Pella advised investors to focus on companies with “relatively high certainty of earnings and are trading at attractive valuations relative to those earnings”. His picks include budget retail chains Dollar General [DG] and B&M [BME.L].

Nike reduces inventory pile

Inventory issues have plagued Nike [NKE] this year. The sports brand announced back in September that it would “liquidate excess inventory more aggressively”. Second-quarter results released Tuesday shows that it’s slowly reducing its pile. While inventory was up 43% year-over-year to $9.3bn by the end of November, it was down from $9.7bn at the end of August. The Nike share price shot up by 13%  in extended trading Tuesday after announcing its latest earnings.

Cathie Woods buys over 46,000 Tesla shares

Tesla [TSLA] was set to open in the green on Wednesday after Musk announced that he was actively looking for someone to replace him as CEO of Twitter. “Finally a good step in the right direction to end this painful nightmare situation for Tesla investors,” tweeted Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood bought over 27,000 shares on Monday and 19,000 on Tuesday.