- The outperformance of the US stock market has been well documented.
- This table, however, suggests something different below the surface.
- Looking at the top 50 stocks in the MSCI ACWI Index over the last decade – on average 75% of these have been outside the US.
Stocks
Interesting, and often contrarian, Snippets on individual companies and the stock market.
Wirecard
Most Popular Robinhood Stocks Time-lapse
- 30 most popular stocks on Robinhood data sourced from Robintrack.
Understanding Value Investing
- This series is one of the better when it comes to understanding what has gone wrong for value investors.
- The first looks into whether value is actually cheap.
- “The evidence brings us full circle to Arnott’s observation that the problem with the Value Factor has not been the absolute performance of Value stocks. The problem has been shorting the Glamour stocks“.
- The second, propose something very intriguing – “that looking through the lens of optionality reveals that the source of excess returns to factors are not a function of the securities themselves, but rather the rules of portfolio construction and the embedded optionality these rules create“
- The third article is yet to be published.
Bonds and Equities
- Surprisingly as bond prices fall below 90c on the dollar, the associated company equity returns deteriorate sharply.
- Effectively distressed risk is not compensated.
- This data sourced from Verdad bond database uses USD corporate high yield and investment grade bonds from 1996 until May 2020.
Popular Social Apps by Country
- It is really amazing that China has managed to home grow all its own most popular apps.
CIO Survey Part 2
- JPM Survey of 130 Chief Investment Officers (CIOs) who command $88bn of annual IT spend.
- This chart shows spending plans by software provider – depicting net percentage who expect to increase spending.
- Clear winners are MSFT, AMZN (AWS) and ServiceNow.
- Clear losers are Dropbox, Oracle, Box and IBM.
CIO Survey Part 1
- Results of a survey by JPM of 130 chief investment officers (CIOs) commanding $88bn of annual IT spend.
- This chart shows how CIOs’ foresee categories of IT spend will be affected due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Wikipedia and Zero Clicks
- We previously discussed the rise of zero click searches at Google.
- This is an article about the direct impact of this on Wikipedia.
- “Over the past 24 months Wikipedia has lost billions of organic monthly visitors”
Las Vegas Revenue Mix
- Gambling is a much smaller part today than it was in the 1970s.
Working Capital & Covid
- This is a chart of the working capital of Electrolux since 2003.
- It shows that the total cash collection cycle has fallen from 63 days in 2003 (a peak of 87) to zero today.
- This was almost entirely achieved by payable days doubling from 60 to 120.
- In short the company is squeezing suppliers.
- What happens after Covid? This excellent blog post addresses this and other impacts.
Netflix Accounting
- A good article on accounting at Netflix.
- In short, it analyses content amortisation accounting and shows that this line item is being understated, boosting earnings.
- A staggering stat is that Netflix content spend went from $2bn in 2011 to nearly $14bn last year.
- This might not be relevant for the share price for now but is still worth knowing about.
Option Volume by Expiry
- Fascinating chart showing that options volume is being concentrated – at nearly 20% – in options with 24 hour expiry.
Ad pricing
- Always worth keeping an eye on digital ad prices.
- This chart from IAB shows the impact across various online channels.
- CPMs have been hit by -16%.
- Interesting to see the range – open web display being hit the hardest while video, podcast and search are more resilient.
Banking 2.0
- On average a banking relationship in the UK lasts 17 years, longer than most actual relationships.
- This is a great chart comparing how long it takes in days and clicks to open a new account – challenger banks like Revolut win hands down.
Zoom
- Thinknum alternative data suggesting that Zoom Video app popularity has probably peaked.
- Pictured is the ‘talking about’ score on Facebook but there are other indicators (e.g. app ratings) that suggest the same.
British Land
- Brookfield have declared a 7.3% stake in British Land (BLND) – the UK property company.
- This is interesting as Brookfield in the early 2000s bought a stake in Canary Wharf Group eventually, in 2014, taking it over (together with QIA via Songbird).
- BLND shares have been weak in the last year.
Value
- Value has had a very tough time.
- This chart shows drawdowns of value vs. growth since 1926.
- This drawdown is currently at a record -52%. (h/t 361 Capital)
- In fact the ratio of growth to value has just hit the same level as in 2000 Tech bubble peak (h/t Redburn).
- Investors are coming out defending the style even after adjusting for the valuation metric issues discussed before.
Fund Performance 2020
- Good to see that 45% of large-cap active managers are managing to use the dislocation of 2020 so far to outperform the market.
Covid & Hospital Procedures
- Data showing the impact of Covid on various hospital procedures.
- Unique patient visits are -54.5%.
- Interesting to see big drops in eye, spine and joint replacement surgeries.
- Knee (-99%) and hip replacement (-79%) are the hardest hit – not great for orthopaedic stocks.
