Stocks

Doordash

  • At Snippet we are huge fans of alternative data sources.
  • Thinknum is a website that uses numbers to tell stories.
  • It is very useful in terms of tracking investments.
  • For example this article shows that using online data sources Doordash (the food delivery service) has started beating its rivals.
  • This gap opened up in 2019 and is consistent across data sources.
Misc

Academic Publishing

  • Academia is the source of a lot of the world’s basic knowledge.
  • In this really interesting piece two academics analysed a database of 120 million academic publications from 25 million authors.
  • They found some very interesting conclusions.
  • Papers have become shorter, while features that attract readers – like titles and abstracts – have gotten longer (academic clickbait).
  • There is a huge increase in new authors and they publish at a much faster rate (see chart).
  • Overall these results support Goodhart’s law – any measure will eventually become a target.
Tools

NY Fed NowCast

  • Nowcast Report is a useful tool, produced by the New York Fed.
  • It gives a NowCast (the best current estimate given data to date) of US Quarterly GDP.
  • The inputs are laid out and it changes daily as prices come in.
  • Most people use the more popular brother produced by Atlanta Fed GDPNow, but we have found this one to be more rigorous.
Stocks

RIT Capital (RCP.LON)

  • An interesting investment trust we have come across is RIT Capital.
  • It is run by the Rothschild family.
  • It trades at a small premium to NAV (Net Asset Value) – so it is down to NAV growth and dividends to deliver returns.
  • They are invested in a broad range of assets – from hedge funds, to real estate, to gold.
  • Their goal is steady, long term wealth compounding.
  • Disclosure. We owns shares in RCP.LON
Stocks

Forever 21

  • Interesting to see Forever 21 file for bankruptcy.
  • They experienced huge growth that was perhaps too much to swallow.
  • “We went from seven countries to 47 countries within a less-than-six-year time frame and with that came a lot of complexity” EVP Linda Chang.
  • Clearly online competition and declining mall traffic (F21 was big in malls) were the key culprits.
  • Full story here from NYT.
Stocks

FTCH

  • Shares of Farfetch (luxury online clothing retailer) have collapsed.
  • Looks like a huge over-reaction to slowing GMV and an acquisition.
  • In fact, GMV only slowed a tiny bit and the deal looks interesting (a vertical integration).
  • More concerning is the departure of the COO (online retail is an operationally heavy business).
  • FTCH trades below 1x GMV – attractive if 40%+ growth can continue.

Common Sense Disclaimer. We plan to ponder about stocks and other investments here on Snippet. Some will look attractive and some we might recommend. Some we are buying/own ourselves (always disclosed). You should always do your own work, use common sense and invest responsibly!

Stocks

Private Equity

  • Last week shares in private equity firm EQT saw a 25% pop on the first day of trading.
  • Interesting to see private equity listing again – something that marked the top of the last cycle (except Carlyle/Oaktree both listing in 2012).
  • EQT raised 5.3bn SEK of new money and 13.5bn of sales by shareholders – a telling sign.
  • In the meantime over the last year the existing listed players have also started to convert their shares from limited partnerships to common stock – widening investor bases.
Stocks

Zero-click Searches

  • June was a milestone.
  • For the first time, since the advent of the modern search engine, more than 50% of Google searches resulted in zero-clicks.
  • In other words, people searched on google and didn’t click on an ad or an organic search result.
  • This trend has been steadily building and has profound implications for businesses around the world.
Misc

How do people get new ideas?

  • In 1959 a scientist asks Isaac Asimov to join a project to develop the most creative approach possible to a ballistic missile defence system.
  • Asimov eventually declines, but leaves one contribution – a wonderful essay on creativity.
  • Full of lessons that can be applied to investment meetings. Such as:
    • Meet in a relaxed place.
    • Meetings shouldn’t always involve the same people.
    • No more than 5 people per meeting.
    • Try not to link pay to generating ideas – instead link it to executing ideas/tasks.
Misc

Pressure Point Theory

  • Often peak noise tends to lag the underlying trend that caused it.
  • Worse the trend is often already receding when noise picks up.
  • A great example is the refugee situation in the EU.
  • This is a chart (source: UN) of arrivals into Europe by land and sea.
  • Although the numbers peaked in the autumn of 2015 the noise still continues.
  • This is important for investing – next time you find yourself pondering noisy news flow, ask yourself – what is the data saying? What is the underlying trend doing?
Macroeconomics

Help to Buy

  • It took the government 30 pages to come to the conclusion that was obvious from the start of the program.
  • “Help to Buy was originally intended as a short-lived scheme but will now last for 10 years and consume over 8 times its original budget, yet the value achieved from its extension is uncertain.”
  • “Around three-fifths of buyers who took part in the scheme did not need its support to buy a property, and the large sums of money tied up could have been spent in different ways to address a wider set of housing priorities and focus more on those most in need.”
Misc

Spaced Repetition

  • Ever wonder what the most efficient way to learn something is?
  • This fascinating piece argues that the best approach for long term memory retention and learning is spaced active repetition.
  • The idea is to actively (i.e. asking a question) recall information at ever increasing intervals, using software to help timing.
  • As the chart below shows – cramming (massed repetition) works well in the short run but for the long run spaced repetition wins.
Stocks

Boeing

  • A fascinating article on Boeing and where it all went wrong.
  • In 1997 Boeing was pushed to merge with MacDonnell Douglass.
  • This turned into a reverse take-over – “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money” – corrupting the engineering-first culture.
  • The results of this are only now being felt.
  • It is important to always look at the long-term history of a company.
  • There is an even longer read on the topic over at The New Republic.
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