Meitu (HK: 1357) (OTCPK: MEIUF) shares are down 13% in Hong Kong today. There's been no news release from the company, indeed no particular news at all. No grand reports on the Chinese internet market, no news discussions of who is going to win, who lose and so on. All we've really got is the news of a large block trade: “A bearish block trade of 894K shares of MEITU(01357) occurred at price of HK$2.9 and turnover of HK$2.593M at 02:35p.m . The last price is down 12.048%. Today's highest price is $3.55 and lowest price is $2.89. Total volume is 189.179M shares and total turnover is HK$607.521M.”
That's enough trade to put Meitu where it normally isn't, on the list of Hong Kong's biggest stocks by value of daily turnover. Clearly someone is bearish in size and that's triggering a number of market participants to follow. No, we don't know why.
The actual Meitu business is: “It offers a portfolio of photo and community apps, including the Meitu app, BeautyCam, BeautyPlus, Meipai, MeituEve, MeituGenius, and others. The company also provides online advertising, VIP subscription and software as a service, internet value-added, influencer marketing, advertising agency, and other related services. In addition, it offers information technology and online recruitment services; and develops and operates apps.” That's clearly an area driven hard by fashion - apps and services go in an out of style. We out here are unlikely to be able to monitor how that's happening inside China so clearly we'll always be flying a little blind where Meitu is concerned.#
Meitu share price from Hong Kong Stock Exchange
There is better news from Japan, where Meitu has launched apps: “The ability to turn a user's selfie into an anime character has turbocharged an app developed by Meitu Inc (美圖) to the top of Japan's download rankings over the past week, spurring a big jump in the Hong Kong-based firm's shares. Meitu is up more than 50 percent over the past couple of weeks, as its app reached the top of Apple Inc's free iPhone downloads chart and No. 2 on Android's Google Play in Japan, data.ai figures showed.” But that's from 6 months back and as we say such things are driven by fashion - not long lasting staying power.
The only real information available today about Meitu is that there's that large and bearish trade - that's enough to move the shares down 13% on the day.