What Have I Learned from Sharing VTuber Stock Market Updates

Cover Corporation (¥1,673.00, ▾2.05%) has entered the Japanese stock market, with plans to improve Hololive Production's livestreaming technology and develop their e-commerce business. Previously, Anycolor Inc. (¥5,810.00, ▴4.50%) joined the stock market with plans to further expand the Nijisanji brand to overseas audiences further.

The decision of these two Japanese companies to go public gave me an idea to be firm in VTuber NewsDrop's goal to discuss the Technology, Industry and Community aspects of Virtual YouTubing. So, as a joke, we started sharing daily—and soon after, weekly—stock market updates (after all, I started this around April Fools' Day).

One month after, what have I learned so far by merely reading and sharing the numbers? The short answer: I still have a lot to learn.

The Long Answer

NewsDrop writers have the freedom to talk about almost anything as long as it's relevant to VTubing, so I pushed through this plan on my own as an experiment. By doing so, I get to learn several things:

First, I learned that it's not just Cover or Anycolor who's in the stock market—just look at the companies we included in the Key Players watchlist and their reason for their inclusion.

Second, stock market reports are created by hand using data we read off Google Finance—which means human error is bound to happen once we encode it into our graphics. We are yet to find a better solution to automate this process, but for now, we ask for your kind understanding.

Third, figuring out a company's financial status just by reading its stock data and comparing it with recent news stories is a hit-or-miss process which could lead to misinformation.

We have prepared interactive charts below using StorylineJS to help us with understanding what we would like to convey to you, our readers. (It might take time to load the full chart, and we ask for your kind patience.):

• My hypothesis: News that is about or related to a company, whether domestic or overseas, may affect its stock price. This is what I would like to prove when the idea of sharing stock market updates was first conceived.
• Look at Anycolor, it has had a lot of ups and downs since its Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) debut in June 2022. Its daily volume (number of shares of a security traded during a given period of time) is not constant as well.
• Its stock price rose to ¥12,700 (volume: 1.5M), but it looks like the company's growth may not be because of the headlines. For most companies (if not all), stock market disclosures can affect a company's share price.
• We compared the important moments in the agency's history with its stock market price and I have yet to see if my hypothesis was right. Data obtained shows that there is no direct correlation between what overseas VTuber News media reports about a listed company and its performance in the stock market.
• There is certainly information I need to delve into, because as you see in the interactive charts below, I have yet to find out what factor/s which led to a rise in Nijisanji's share price between September to December 2022.

As for Cover, they've recently disclosed (PDF) that it revised its earnings forecast to reflect the growth the company is experiencing thanks to merch sales and activities such as Hololive Super Expo and 4th Fes.

• Let it be known that no event of grave importance (graduations, terminations, etc.) has happened within Hololive Production from the start of Cover Corporation's listing to the TSE from March 27, 2023 up to the time this piece has been published. It is indeed too early to conclude what Cover's performance is, as it only got listed in the stock market for more or less a month.
• In addition, Cover's share price is maintained at the ¥1,000 level at the moment, which the interactive chart below interprets as a constant straight line.

Over the course of four weeks of April monitoring the ten key VTuber players, it appears that Anycolor has lost value for the month of April as three out of four weekly averages appear negative.

• Even so, the company is not stopping short of its plan to reach more audiences physically, as Nijisanji EN partners with events such as Anime Impulse (USA), Comic World Taiwan and Nijigen Expo (Malaysia) to bring their talents closer to their audience.

Lastly, the watchlist may need to be updated each month to check on the next key VTuber players in the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

• I may need to add more key players upon verification, which expands the template I am using. You'll see new additions to the watchlist first on Twitter.
• I also had a plan to split the graphics so we can focus on comparing Cover vs Anycolor, and then the rest in the watchlist. I am not keen on this as I'm very sure this breeds more tribalism and vitriol.

Addressing Criticisms

I read one piece of criticism against the way I report stock market updates: Someone wrote in a comment thread that we are stirring up conflicts, saying these phrases in Japanese:

• "What is the point of just randomly comparing each company?"
• "[Overseas media such as NewsDrop is] just speculating why the stock dropped, tweeting and spreading false information on its own."

I would like to address this by saying that the information I receive is public knowledge—it's shared by the Tokyo Stock Exchange to Google Finance (and if I need to get it faster, I could go to QUICK).

• Upon reading the said comments, I realize that what I am doing can be so powerful that I may end up disrupting businesses unknowingly. That said, I commit to be sure of what I say, and only provide further added context whenever needed.

We reiterate that our observation is NOT financial advice, which means anyone can search these data, talk about it online, and counter-check with us if we make sense or not. I will do my best to be kind and understanding, and if at any moment I fail to understand these matters in fuller detail, kindly bear with me. Thank you for your kind cooperation.

Will I Continue Doing This?

Whenever I offer something unique into the table that is the 24/7 VTuber News cycle, I aim to bring something of value to our readers, just like any good website. Now that I have shared my findings from this activity, will I still continue doing it? Well, maybe?

Here's a story: A VTuber agency executive reached out to NewsDrop one time ago, asking if a column for Market Capitalization could be added in the next set of updates. I happily obliged, applying the suggestion into the current template we have. Feedback like this helps the experiment grow.

That said, I shall continue doing these updates for another month or two, and we shall see where things go—you will definitely hear from me soon. As I continue to overthink this matter to a point that it's becoming a "whoosh" kind of bad take, allow me to thank you for reading through to the end.

Banner Photo: Yiorgos Ntrahas on Unsplash.
Stock Market Information from Tokyo Stock Exchange via Google Finance and TradingView.