With "Schrei vor Glück", translated as "Crying for joy", Zalando found a catchphrase in 2012 that went on to prove to be a smash hit. The slogan has since become closely associated with the rise of the online fashion retailer. Although Zalando no longer uses the claim, many shareholders of the Berlin company may well have cried for joy over the last few weeks: in the midst of the corona crisis, the mid-cap has reached an all-time high (see chart). Whereas uncertainty is dominating in many sectors, the lockdown caused by the virus has turned online business into an economy of its own. After Germany, Switzerland is the second biggest single market for Zalando. According to the company, its share of sales in 2019 stood in the "low two-digit percentage range". Based on these numbers alone, Zalando looks set to have realised more than CHFmn 900 in revenue in the domestic market. That would place the shop in second place behind Digitec Galaxus. In 2019, what is by its own figures the largest online retailer in Switzerland crossed the billion-franc barrier in sales.
While Digitec Galaxus is not listed on the stock market, the number 3 in the Swiss e-commerce market is among the giants of Wall Street. Amazon.com now has a market capitalisation of USDtn 1.2. Less surprisingly, the business of the internet empire, which has now also branched into the cloud and streaming segment, has been booming during the lockdown. Amazon.com reported 26% growth in sales for the 1st quarter. The increase in its workforce led to results coming in behind expectations, however. Although the group is anticipating further strains for the current quarter and does not rule out a loss, the share is trading at record levels again. Leonteq is now bringing the two leading online shopping stores together as underlying stocks for a soft-callable Barrier Reverse Convertible. However the two shares perform in the future, the CHF product pays a coupon of 11.00% p.a. This opportunity is partially protected by a risk buffer of 41%.
Logistics providers play a central role in the value chain of e-commerce business. Over the last few weeks they have been faced with the herculean challenge of bringing the mountain of online orders to customers as quickly as possible. To give an example, at Easter 2020 Deutsche Post distributed packages in quantities that are otherwise only usual in the run-up to Christmas. Alongside the boom in online business, though, the crisis is slowing the European industry leader down elsewhere, causing CEO Frank Appel to withdraw the forecast for 2020 at the start of April. According to the top executive, however, the situation has since stabilised. After China, he says, business on the old continent is likewise now heading for normality. "We are keeping the world economy going," said Appel recently, highlighting the strategic importance of Deutsche Post. Despite everything, a partially protected position could also and especially be advisable in the logistics sector. To that end Leonteq has launched a new issue on Deutsche Post, Kühne & Nagel and AP Moeller - Maersk. A guaranteed coupon of 14.00% p.a. is combined with barriers of 59% of the respective initial fixing for the logistics trio.
A firm feature of many online orders is that payments are processed digitally, whether with the aid of an app on the smartphone or tablet or directly via a credit or debit card. Digital payment was one of the growth fields in the financial sector even before the corona crisis. According to Statista, in the current year the sector could handle money transfers in the volume of just under USDtn 4.3. By 2024 this figure is set to rise by an average of more than a fifth each year to reach almost USDtn 9.5. In light of this, Leonteq brought a tracker certificate on the Swissquote Digital Payments Index onto the market at the start of 2019. At present the actively managed underlying contains 20 companies. They include not only the well-established US credit card providers American Express, Mastercard and Visa but also the payment processors Paypal and Nexi. The Swissquote Digital Payments Index reached its highest level to date on 20 February 2020. After the coronavirus sell-off then dragged the benchmark down with the rest, it has recently experienced a V-shaped recovery (see chart).
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