Published: May 02, 2016
Today LinkedIn announced a merger deal with Microsoft in which the professional network will be acquired for $196/share cash. The transaction is expected to close at the end of this year. SumZero did a quick follow up with Selective Wealth Management PM Chris Devlin who originally pitched LNKD on...
Published: January 06, 2016
Back in January, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) announced it was going to finally spin off its $30B stake in Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) into a newly-formed company named Aabaco.
Aabaco’s main goal and business would be to hold, invest, and trade in Alibaba’s shares. However, after IRS comments made at a Washing...
Published: December 10, 2015
Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) is one of the most controversial and heavily-covered names in the market in recent memory. To help investors understand the name at a more advanced level, SumZero has asked two fund professionals that cover the company closely, one long and one short, to opine on some ...
Published: October 28, 2015
Bitcoin’s largest volatility events have been for the most part attributable to news events. Such events have involved bitcoin companies, global macroeconomic crises, law enforcement actions, regulatory developments and so on. The most notable of these have been the Mt. Gox collapse, the arrest o...
Published: October 16, 2015
Mobileye is a small piece of a much larger puzzle which doesn’t support long term monopolistic margins predicted by the sell side. Especially if you know the automotive industry, it’s easy to be highly suspicious of sell-side assumptions that assume a market that is a few million units today is g...
Published: June 25, 2015
When Groupon went public, it was generating nearly all of its revenues through local coupons and deals. The company acted as a middleman by allowing merchants to offer special deals to its user base, achieving gross margins upwards of 80% in the process. However, this business model had very litt...
Published: May 22, 2015
Overvalued, levered cable operator on an acquisition spree with no strategic focus in an industry with multiple headwinds. Street is giving management too much credit due to consolidation.
We don’t remember many newspaper executives in the mid‐‘90s insisting their businesses were about to crater. We suspect that several hundred years ago, scribes thought the demand for handwritten books would continue to last indefinitely and that the whole printing press thing wasn’t really a thre...
Published: April 30, 2014
Founded in December 2007, Two Fish Management, LLC is an options focused investment management firm that aims to provide excess risk-adjusted investment returns over conventional benchmarks through a variety of unique strategies for individuals, independent financial advisors, broker/dealers and ...
Published: April 07, 2014
These rapidly increasing costs are primarily due to the licensing fees required to maintain Netflix's expansive streaming content library. Netflix is in constant content-bidding wars with a number of other big name companies such as Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Outerwall (OUTR)...
Published: March 19, 2014
AOL is a deceptively cheap asset which is at an inflection point in all three businesses. The street believes EBITDA growth will be half of last year and misses key value catalysts. I believe the company will emerge in the next six months as a growth asset with a stable legacy business with signi...
Published: October 10, 2013
Tale of the taper. Amidst a Fed-tapering, rising interest/ mortgage rate backdrop, Trulia (the "Company") also finds its growth rates tapering. Copycat risk is extremely high given the lack of a defensible, sustainable competitive advantage and a marginal competitive position as the #2 player in ...
Published: August 15, 2013
It is important to understand what makes QVC such a structurally good business. Approximately 75% of the products sold on QVC are exclusive, reducing direct competition with other retailers. The use of on-air hosts to promote products engenders consumer trust and loyalty and is an effective way t...
Published: December 18, 2012
The dramatic and accelerating evolution of technology is, however, quickly turning the prospects of investing in a historically great business into something more akin to sleeping on top of a ticking time bomb. You don’t know when it’s going to go off, but sooner or later, it will. Owners of thes...
Published: December 13, 2012
We estimated that this current year (FYE June 2013) net additions will be approximately 50k and will turn negative from next year. There are 2 main reasons for this. First of all, we think the UK DTH market is very mature and near saturation. The second, and more important, reason is that competi...
Published: December 11, 2012
Expedia is in the midst of a major acceleration from improving conversion rates as a result of its recent website and platform upgrade. We believe its key metric, hotel room night growth, is poised for acceleration on the back of the platform overhaul. The initial stages of the global platform mi...
Published: September 25, 2012
While I do not typically peddle Eric Jackson's commentary, I thought he put out a good note on Yahoo! the other day regarding the hiring of Jackie Reses. He believes she brings a private equity mindset to the Company, and will prove instrumental in Marissa Mayer's turnaround strategy:
Published: September 06, 2012
Most people in North America (my main audience) have a mobile phone and at the very least a vague sense of what Apple is. Therefore most people have an opinion on the mobile phone market. You mention Nokia and they recoil in horror. This vague notion of what the company does and the associated be...
Published: September 06, 2012
Facebook shares sank after BMO Capital analyst Daniel Salmon wrote that many advertisers appear to be reducing the amount of money they're spending on the website. Two out of every three advertisers contacted by Salmon divulged information that was negative for the stock, the analyst wrote.
Published: August 29, 2012
The availability of affordable smartphones (less than $130) will trigger explosive smartphone adoption in China. China Mobile (CHL) is a leader in the voice segment, but was losing ground in the smartphone segment. However, its main competitive disadvantage (lack of handset variety) is now fixed....
Published: August 22, 2012
Since Third Point first disclosed its position in September 2011, three key overhangs in Yahoo! stock– lack of strategic direction, dysfunctional Board of Directors and unsubstantiated Alibaba valuation – have been addressed, two of which were the direct result of Third Point’s involvement (the s...
Published: June 20, 2012
I think investors have inaccurately assessed the massive transformation in the quality of DMD’s content and are irrationally concerned about DMD’s ability to adjust to the new Google algorithm. The growing page views, my checks with relevant parties and my own research have shown to me that they ...
Published: June 06, 2012
Everybody knows, or thinks they know the company, but the more time I spend talking to professional investors about Apple, the more clear it becomes that 90% of those who consider themselves 'informed,' and possibly directly involved in the name, know little about the applicable metrics, growth r...