Off the Charts! Travel bubble opens, Yuan goes digital and Canva considers listing

Yes folks it's Off the Charts! our weekly round-up of everything you need to know (and some things you don't) from the world of investment. The Livewire team hopes you had a well-deserved Easter break to round out the end of Q1. 

Off The Charts' stories of the week

#1 Trans-tasman bubble begins

First-up, international travel is back on the menu. That's right! Quarantine-free* travel opens up across the Tasman starting from April 19, and boy are we excited.

*The quarantine-free part does come with an asterisk, however. The plans are subject to cases and their level of severity, and the airlines will be closely watching out for any potential flare-ups in community transmission across the border. 

The announcement has led to a sharp rise in travel stocks, with the biggest winner, Qantas, up 7% this week. 

Surprisingly, flight prices haven't run up dramatically. Yet. But don't get comfortable thinking you're the only one planning a holiday to our friends across the channel.

#2 Gamestop (FINALLY) cashes in on the mania

After a wild start to the year for the struggling retailer, GameStop is finally attempting to use all this attention to its advantage. GameStop will be issuing 3.5 million of its shares 'at-the-market', allowing them to progressively list the securities as they see fit. 

This move will hopefully see a much-needed cash injection into the business. With more debt than equity on their balance sheet, this inflow of funds could go toward paying down that debt and transitioning to better compete with online retailers. 

Surprisingly, through all this, Simply Wall St reports there has not been any significant insider selling of the company shares since the jump in January. The phrase 'sinking ship' comes to mind here, but the managers seem to think otherwise. 

Source: Apple/YahooFinance

#3 CHINA TAKING THE CRYPTO- OUT OF cryptocurrency 

Move over Bitcoin because there's a new player in the digital payments game. Albeit, one with more oversight and less freedom.

"But isn't money already digital?" you may be asking yourself. "I pay for things with my phone all the time." You may add. Digital payment systems like Apple Pay or BeemIt facilitate the transfer of already existing currency. 

But, as the WSJ puts it:

China will be turning legal tender itself into code.

For a government hooked on surveillance, this will be an additional point of data to help keep tabs on the nation.

But the move could also be a dream come true for governments around the world. Relief can be instantly sent to disaster victims and criminal activity becomes easier to find and monitor. Individuals can also transfer funds or make payments without the hassle of fees.

While there will be a transition period, China has plans to eventually move all its currency onto a digital platform, which has been perceived as a major threat to US power through its ability to place sanctions on the USD in global transactions.

Source: Pixabay/RABAUZ

#4  TWO COMPANIES WARRING OVER ... TRASH

This week, a different Suez is making headlines.

Cleanaway Waste Management announced on Tuesday it would be making a $2.52 billion bid for the Australian arm of the trash collection company Suez, but rival French waste giant Veolia, seeking to buy Suez in an $18.5 billion all-of-company takeover. Veolia quickly kicked off legal action to stop the Cleanaway bid. Whether this deal can get closed any time soon is up in the air.

Despite this, Cleanaway's share price is running up 11%. Analysts at UBS are picking the merger to boost the group's revenue by 55%. 

#5 CANVA'S DESIGNS ON LISTING

This week, Aussie design platform Canva received a US$9 billion uplift in its valuation. The company is now worth US$15 billion and is quickly becoming one of Australia's most exciting success stories and insiders are now hinting that an IPO is inevitable. 

The founders are self-proclaimed fans of the Atlassian story and now with a spur of capital from Skip Capital – VC firm of Kim Jackson, wife of Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar - the design company is on its way to NASDAQ heaven. 

All eyes are on the Canva team to see what happens next for this incredible success story.

Source: lumen5/Canva

BEST OF THE BEST ... LIVEWIRE'S TOP FIVE-PERFORMING CONTRIBUTOR STORIES THIS WEEK

1. CSL: The answers - in this wire, Rudi Filapek-Vandyck provides seven reasons why long-time ASX darling CSL has underperformed in the last year. 
2. The only way is up for shares and commodities - here Tom Stevenson from Fidelity breaks down why the current macro environment has shares and commodities with only one way to go. Up.
3. Why this COVID-hit sector is still attractively priced - of the many sectors to be hit hard in 2020, a surprising loser was the enterprise software sector as Steve Johnson identifies. This wire explains why these tech stocks are still attractively priced. 
4. Owning tomorrow's production assets as a new resources boom unfolds - with the chorus of commentators picking the next few years to kick off another commodities supercycle, Joshua Baker identifies two resource producers that could take off. 
5. Commodity super-cycle hype: Copper edition - To round out the commodities chat Damien Klassen offers up a counter-thesis for the bears as to why he's not so convinced about an impending copper boom.

And coming up week beginning 12 April...

• Next week we have a Buy Hold Sell bonanza featuring Bella Kidman, Adam Dawes and James Whelan, expect 3 exciting episodes in your feed soon.
• Nicholas Plessas will be serving up the first instalment of his education series Back to Basics, covering all the important topics to introduce new investors into the market.
• Expect a new CIO profile coming where Ally Selby sits down with Joe Magyer to chat about all things global stocks.
• Glenn Freeman will be peaking under the hood of Australia's most consistent yield stocks who have earned the title of Dividend Aristocrats.

What did we miss?

Did you catch a story this week that you thought was Off the Charts? Let us know in the comment section below! Or email content@livewiremarkets.com.