Stocks

Interesting, and often contrarian, Snippets on individual companies and the stock market.

Stocks

Brick and Mortar the Real Winners?

  • A fascinating and thought provoking read on why it is the category leading brick and mortar retailers who will be the real winners in the post Covid era.
  • In one word – omni-channel.
  • “Wal-Mart’s digital revenue in Q2 was an annualized $42 billion, growing 94% — faster than Amazon … Perhaps the simplest way to express what has happened during Covid is to note that Amazon has actually lost share in e-commerce during Covid.”
  • A nice quote – “nothing accelerates change like success“
Stocks

Toyota on Tesla

  • “I am hesitant to say this — Tesla’s business, if you want to use the analogy, is like that of a kitchen and a chef. They have not created a real business in the real world yet. They are trying to trade recipes. The chef is saying ‘Our recipe is going to become the standard of the world in the future!’ At Toyota, we have a real kitchen and a real chef too, and are creating the dishes already. There are customers, who are very picky about what they like to eat, sitting in front of us, and eating our dishes already.” Toyota President Akio Toyoda.
  • Source.
Stocks

NYT Transformation

  • Great set of slides on the transformation at New York Times since 2011.
  • The company just crossed a milestone where digital overtook print.
  • This is also a fascinating read about what happened inside the NYT newsroom during the Trump years and whether this boost was partly responsible for its growing business success.
Stocks

Long Term Stock Exchange Blog

  • We previously covered the LTSE here and some companies (e.g. Airbnb) are indicating a desire to list there.
  • They have started publishing a blog where they discuss all issues related to long-term shareholders and companies.
  • The latest piece covers grading fund managers on how long term they are – LT Score.
  • “This shows that the companies with the highest LT Scores trade at volatility levels that are as much as 30% lower than those with the lowest LT Scores when looking at average 100-day and 250-day historical volatility levels. This is a striking difference.“
Stocks

Spotify Transition

  • Spotify is transitioning and not just via their podcast investments.
  • They are starting to enter the world of advertising and arming artists with tools to reach audiences, at a price.
  • First via Marquee mode – mobile app pop ups to advertise new releases. These see 20% conversion rates, 2.2x lift on saved/playlisted tracks which itself leads to increased playing by 250%.
  • Second via a new Discovery mode – where an artist can boost a track in Spotify’s algorithm in return for a lower take.
  • Interesting post covers the logic behind this as well as price increases.
Stocks

Advertising

  • “Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G, the world’s largest advertiser, dropped a bombshell at the ANA conference a few weeks ago. He said that P&G would be moving away from the upfront model of TV ad buying. With TV advertising going digital, it makes no sense to make massive uninformed bets just because that’s the way it’s been done for decades. Now they can apply data to those decisions and be more deliberate ” The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green.
  • Source.
Stocks

Biogen Saga

  • Earlier this year we covered Biogen’s decision to file Aducanumab (their experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease) here and here.
  • This saga reignited this past week with the publication of FDA adcom documents which on the surface looked positive sending the shares soaring only to be voted down (8-1) at the meeting on Friday sending them crashing down.
  • This really good blog post discusses these events and why it is always important to read all the details.
  • The final FDA outcome is yet to be determined (Adcom decisions aren’t binding) and as previously highlighted could be political.
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