Operating at the Intersection of Technology and the Capital Markets
Month: January 2021
Hopefully prospective SEC Chairman Gary Gensler will work to rein in the frothy activity that has occurred in the capital markets over the past decade. These range from slap on the wrist fines (large banks in particular), which amount to nothing more than a Cost of Goods Sold charge, to SPACs to more recently social … Continue reading The Social Media-Enabled Pump and Dump
The retail trading crowd views Elon Musk as a populist hero. The reality is Musk is a carnival barker and borderline fraudster in the vein of WeWork founder Adam Neumann. Mr. Musk got off easy under lax former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. Recall in August 2018 when Musk posted on Twitter that he had secured … Continue reading Elon Musk Is A Carnival Barker At Best, A Criminal At Worst
During an equity market bubble 13-year old children are as smart or smarter than experienced stock pickers. Who needs to assess valuation, industry trends, the competitive landscape and management teams when stocks only go up? Heck, reddit chat room WallStreetBets ("WSB"), tells investors everything they need to know (said with sarcasm). Plus, Elon Musk Tweeted … Continue reading Everyone Is A Stock-Picking Genius During A Bubble. Where Is The SEC?
Gold prices ought to have climbed higher given the amount of money printing that took place in 2020 and that is likely to continue. What happened? Additional debt-funded "stimulus", QE and accompanying asset inflation should have pushed gold prices higher. After all, gold is a safe haven. What gives? (view a chart of the spot … Continue reading Where Is The Gold Rally?
FOMO is stronger than ever given social media, the 24-hour news cycle and various fintech apps that facilitate equity trading. FOMO ("Fear Of Missing Out"), is stronger than ever, especially among the retail trading community. Retail traders are flush with cash coming off of 2020's Federal Government issued checks and enhanced unemployment benefits. Technology has … Continue reading FOMO Is Stronger Than Ever
A Big Tech vs. Big Government showdown is far less likely than a marriage of the titans. Whether it be Google's search monopoly, the Facebook/ Twitter/ TikTok social media oligopoly, the AWS/ Azure/ GCP oligopoly, the App Store/ Google Play duopoly, or the iOS/Android duopoly, the amount of power and influence concentrated among the world's … Continue reading The Marriage of Big Tech and Big Government
We highlight the example of Amazon's AWS unit leveraging Snowflake - a competitor and partner - to drive AWS revenue. Tickers mentioned: AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, SNOW. Snowflake makes a living providing cloud-based Data & Analytics tools to data scientists and analysts. Snowflake's offerings sit on top of AWS, Azure and GCP. Certain of its offerings … Continue reading Leveraging Competitors To Drive Your Revenue
Read on for our "Tip for Investors" CEOs and CFOs can help spur innovation by creating a culture that values innovation. One such example is tying a portion of variable compensation to new product development (thinking of Tech companies). However, it is the Business Unit leaders and Product Managers ("PMs"), in particular that are responsible … Continue reading Innovation Does Not Happen In The C-Suite
FactSet (tkr: FDS), has all of the tools - more precisely data sets - to compete with ZoomInfo (tkr: ZI), and to potentially close the valuation gap between the two companies. FactSet's platform includes data sets that are more robust than their ZoomInfo counterparts (with the exception of executive profile data), and could therefore challenge … Continue reading CEO Personality, Corporate Culture and Opportunity Cost
YouTube is virtually the same size as Netflix from a Revenue standpoint. Netflix will finish 2020 with Revenue of approximately $25 billion. YouTube will finish 2020 with combined Ad Revenue and Subscription Revenue of approximately $22-23 billion. The two operations share similar revenue growth rates. Thus, if Netflix is worth $227 billion, what is YouTube … Continue reading YouTube vs. Netflix
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