US stocks start with gains, Chinese gaming stocks listed in the U.S. slump

(August 3) US stocks start with gains. Dow and S&P 500 within striking distance of record highs.

Translate Bio Inc. surged over 29%, Sanofi to buy Translate Bio for $3.2 Billion in mRNA push.

The big story overnight was China's latest crackdown in which the XInhua-affiliated Economic Information Daily cited Tencent's "Honor of Kings" in an article in which it said minors were addicted to online games and called for more curbs on the industry. The broadside re-ignited investor fears about state intervention in China after Beijing had already targeted the property, education and technology sectors to curb cost pressures and reassert the primacy of socialism after years of runaway market growth.  "They don’t believe anything is off limit and will react, sometimes overreact, to anything on state media that fits the tech crackdown narrative,” Ether Yin, partner at Trivium, a Beijing-based consultancy.

Not surprisingly, Chinese gaming stocks listed in the U.S. slump in morning trading; among the biggest gaming-related stocks falling this morning, NetEase sinks 9.39%, Bilibili falls 7.61%, Huya declines 4.56% and DouYu International slides 4.63% as of 9:32am in New York, Other large-cap Chinese stocks are also lower in U.S. premarket trading: Alibaba -2.95%, Pinduoduo -2.12%, Baidu -1.90%.

EV stocks mixed in morning rading. Tesla gains again after Piper Sandler forecasts more margin improvement.BP rose over 4% in morning trading. BP ups dividend and announces $1.4bn buyback as profits recover.

Nikola fell over 2% in morning trading. Nikola Q2 adj. per-share loss 20 cents, beats loss 30 cents estimate.

• Nikola Q2 per-share loss 36 cents vs. loss 43 cents a year ago;
• Nikola Q2 net loss 143.23bln vs. net loss 115.78bln a year ago.