ByteDance Getting its TikTok Clock Cleaned by Congress

TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, has outpaced growth of almost every social media platform, and its meteoric rise in value profoundly challenges Meta’s, Twitter’s, Discord’s, and dare we add Snap’s dominance on the social media podium.  Following testimony from Shou Zi Chew (ByteDance CEO), the outsized selling pressure was expected to continue, but ApeVue has seen a reversal.

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Roughly $20-billion of bid, offer, and trade activity was observed on the top ten most active unicorns across a consortium of secondary market brokers in 2022 into 2023, with ByteDance’s Bid:Offer ratio being the 2nd most sell order weighted (12% Bids versus 88% Offers).  Data could be read to show an expectation that the insiders had seen the writing on the ‘great’ wall for Chinese owners, with the potential for a forced sale known many months prior to the press’ observation.  

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Despite a difficult 2022, more recent market movements, both over the last three-month and six-month periods, have shown ByteDance’s composite share price outperform the broader market index; the ApeVue50 Index is used as a private markets benchmark of the 50 most active unicorns in the secondary market.  Additionally, the Bid:Offer ratio on the name has risen quite dramatically from ~12% to almost 30% YTD-2023.

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There has been a broad uptick in volumes market-wide to start 2023, and ByteDance’s relative performance will be a major name to watch.

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