Stocks

Dotdash

  • Dotdash, a business created by IAC from the remnants of About.com, is a very interesting business you probably haven’t heard about.
  • It reaches 100m monthly users, is profitable ($40m of EBITDA) and growing.
  • It is also unique event in digital media – a turnaround.
  • “Our job is to make great content that loads quickly with relevant non-intrusive advertising,” he insists. “If we execute, the search results will be fine.” His critics call this naive, but Vogel is trying to build a billion-dollar publishing business, not a search colossus. He’s betting that Google will drive traffic to the best content.
Stocks

Fintechs Threat to Banks

  • Interesting chart from Alphaville.
  • This is analysis from the behaviour of 688,000 mobile banking users for 3 months of 2019.
  • The x-axis shows the proportion of people who use each of the major banking apps at least once a month.
  • The y-axis shows the proportion of those people that use that banking app exclusively.
  • It suggests that high street banks not only have the highest share of mobile app usage, but also a far more loyal base of users.
  • Lots of further interesting stats inside the article.
Misc

Dishwashers

  • Interesting article about what has been going on with dishwashers.
  • In summary they have gotten a lot worse.
  • In order to reduce water use from the original 15 gallons to 3 gallons, cycle times have increased. The chart (source) is striking.
  • The wash results have also gotten a lot worse due to chemical regulation.
  • Consumers think that by buying a newer model these problems will be solved but the reality is that an older model will do a better job.
Stocks

Value Factor

  • Interesting piece by Cliff Asness of AQR on the value factor.
  • Valuation of value stocks (the cheapest ones) are near historic levels against the most expensive stocks on several measures – suggesting now might be a good time to invest in this factor.
  • This chart shows the price to book ratio of the expensive 30% of stocks divided by this ratio for the cheapest 30%, adjusted for industry.
  • The spread is now in 97th %ile of the ex-tech bubble range.
Stocks

Start-ups & Principal Risk

  • Venture backed businesses are increasingly pivoting towards taking more principal risk and moving away from acting as brokers.
  • Latest example is Leavy, an Airbnb copy-cat, who are guaranteeing payments for your apartment holiday rental upfront.
  • The real estate sector has seen this already – with companies offering to buy your home directly.
  • As is discussed here this type of model leads to better margins in good times, but is a lot riskier.
  • It feels like late cycle behaviour.
Macroeconomics

Causes of US Recessions

  • Great table from GS Research showing the main causes of US Recessions since World War I.
  • “A review of the last century of US recessions highlights five major causes: industrial shocks and inventory imbalances; oil shocks; inflationary overheating that leads to aggressive rate hikes; financial imbalances and asset price crashes; and fiscal tightening.”
WordPress Cookie Notice by Real Cookie Banner