B’naire Jeff Bezos is planning to offload around USD 5 bn worth of shares in Amazon, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing (pdf). Bezos — Amazon’s biggest shareholder holding a 9% stake — has already sold around USD 8.5 bn in shares earlier this year, bringing the total of his share sales to USD 13.5 bn. This move comes shortly after Amazon's market value exceeded USD 2 tn last month, placing it as the fifth most valuable company, behind fellow tech giants Microsoft, Google's parent company, Alphabet, Apple, and chipmaker Nvidia.

Even with the USD 5 bn share sale, Bezos would still rank as the company’s largest shareholder, with the former CEO still holding around 912 mn shares following the share sale — equivalent to 8.8% of Amazon, according to calculations by Bloomberg.

Bezos is realizing gains after a bumper year: Amazon shares have surged 30.0% already this year, driven by investor excitement around AI's potential to boost the retail giant’s cloud division, the Financial Times writes.

Bezos is not the only b’naire riding the upward trend in tech stocks: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang cashed in on 1.3 mn shares of the chipmaker for USD 169 mn this month alone as the company’s share price reached record highs, Bloomberg reports. His executives and directors also offloaded USD 700 mn worth of shares in the first six months of 2024. Nvidia's shares are up nearly 160% since January.

ALSO FROM PLANET FINANCE-

  • Some EU nations are getting cold feet about Chinese EV tariffs: Proposed additional EU tariffs on Chinese-made EVs due to be voted on today have been seeing resistance from some members of the bloc. Nations like Germany have opposed the move over fears that retaliatory moves could affect sales in one of the German auto industry’s largest export markets, while other regional auto industry heavyweights, including Italy, Spain, and France, seem to still be firmly behind the move. (Reuters)

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asian markets are up in early trading, with Japan’s Topix hitting an all-time high as investors celebrate positive data on wages in the country. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is also up 0.8% despite purchasing managers’ index data pointing to slower growth in business activity, while mainland China’s CSI 300 remained flat. Wall Street markets are closed today for the 4 July holiday, after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched record highs at close yesterday.

EGX30

28,161

+0.6% (YTD: +13.1%)

USD (CBE)

Buy 48.09

Sell 48.23

USD (CIB)

Buy 48.09

Sell 48.19

Interest rates (CBE)

27.25% deposit

28.25% lending

Tadawul

11,595

-0.1% (YTD: -3.1%)

ADX

9,094

+0.1% (YTD: -5.1%)

DFM

4,079

+0.4% (YTD: +0.5%)

S&P 500

5,537

+0.5% (YTD: +16.1%)

FTSE 100

8,171

+0.6% (YTD: +12.8%)

Euro Stoxx 50

4,966

+1.2% (YTD: +9.8%)

Brent crude

USD 87.34

+1.3%

Natural gas (Nymex)

USD 2.42

+0.2%

Gold

USD 2,365.60

+1.4%

BTC

USD 59,600.80

-3.8% (YTD: +41.4%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 rose 0.6% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 5.1 bn (19% above the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is up 13.1% YTD.

In the green: Orascom Development (+6.1%), EFG Holding (+3.3%), and Abu Qir Fertilizers (+2.7%).

In the red: GB Corp (-3.4%), Ibnsina Pharma (-2.6%), and Edita (-2.3%).

CORPORATE ACTIONS-

Al Ahly for Development and Investment wants to offload its 17.1% stake in Cairo Financial Holding, and will soon tap an independent financial advisor to conduct the fair value study of Cairo Financial Holding ahead of receiving offers from investment banks, the company said in an EGX disclosure (pdf).

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