What We're Reading ~ 11/16/17

15 questions to ask management teams [Clear Eyes Investing]

Jim Chanos betting against dialysis companies [Reuters]

A handful of value managers hoard cash as stocks surge [Bloomberg]

How the right decisions and compounding can lead to huge results [Of Dollars and Data]

The nature of underperformance and why it pays to wait [Of Dollars and Data]

CenturyLink / Level 3 merger: 1+1 = 1/2 ? [Peridot Capitalist]

America's 'retail apocalypse' is really just beginning [Bloomberg]

Withdrawal symptoms: cash is still king in India [SCMP]

How India is moving toward a digital-first economy [HBR]

Byron Wien measures China's tech success [Barrons]

In-depth interview with Shake Shack's Danny Meyer [CBS]

America's coffee market is getting too crowded [WSJ]

Who is investing in e-sports startups? [VentureBeat]

A look at Entercom: CBS Radio Reverse Morris Trust [Clark Street Value]

Corvex Management Increases CenturyLink Position

Keith Meister's activist firm Corvex Management has filed an amended 13D with the SEC regarding its stake in CenturyLink (CTL).  Per the filing, Corvex now owns 6.6% of the company with 36.54 million shares. 

They've increased their stake recently by acquiring a net of 550,000 shares of common stock on August 3rd and 17th, while also acquiring 5 million shares underlying call options.

At the end of the second quarter, Corvex only owned 18.99 million shares, so they've clearly been out accumulating more exposure in recent months. 

CenturyLink is Corvex's largest position.  Their total CTL stake is comprised of 19.58 million shares of common stock and 17 million shares underlying call options.  Of the calls, 4 million of those shares have an exercise price of $28 and expiration of October 20, 2017.  Another 8 million of those have a strike of $30 and same expiration date, while another 5 million are in January 2018 $23 calls. 

We've also highlighted previous portfolio activity from Corvex here.

Per Google Finance, CenturyLink is "n integrated communications company. The Company is engaged in providing an array of communications services to its residential and business customers. Its segments include business, which provides strategic, legacy and data integration products and services to small, medium and enterprise business, wholesale and governmental customers, including other communication providers, and consumer, which provides strategic and legacy products and services to residential customers. Its communications services include local and long-distance voice, broadband, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), private line (including special access), Ethernet, colocation, hosting (including cloud hosting and managed hosting), data integration, video, network, public access, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), information technology and other ancillary services. As of December 31, 2016, it served approximately 5.9 million broadband subscribers and 325,000 Prism TV subscribers."

Corvex Management Ups CenturyLink Stake

Keith Meister's activist firm Corvex Management has filed an amended 13D with the SEC regarding its position in CenturyLink (CTL).  Per the filing, Corvex now owns 5.6% of CTL with over 30.99 million shares.  This is made up of 18.99 million shares and 12 million shares underlying call options.

This is an increase of around 1 million shares from the beginning of May when Corvex first revealed its stake in CTL.  The latest filing was made due to activity on June 16th and it notes they bought CTL at $25.91.

We previously highlighted Meister's presentation on CenturyLink at the Sohn Conference New York.  CenturyLink is merging with Level 3, which Meister thinks is a game changer.

Per Google Finance, CenturyLink is "an integrated communications company. The Company is engaged in providing an array of communications services to its residential and business customers. Its segments include business, which provides strategic, legacy and data integration products and services to small, medium and enterprise business, wholesale and governmental customers, including other communication providers, and consumer, which provides strategic and legacy products and services to residential customers. Its communications services include local and long-distance voice, broadband, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), private line (including special access), Ethernet, colocation, hosting (including cloud hosting and managed hosting), data integration, video, network, public access, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), information technology and other ancillary services. As of December 31, 2016, it served approximately 5.9 million broadband subscribers and 325,000 Prism TV subscribers."

Jeff Saut: Cautious Short-Term, Bullish Long-Term

It's been a while since we last checked in on Jeff Saut, Chief Market Strategist for Raymond James. So today we're looking at the latest market commentary from him entitled, "Catching Pigs?!". (An aside: Saut almost always has odd titles for his investment strategy publications, have you noticed that?) At any rate, he notes that,

"Currently, however, the U.S. equity markets don't 'see' the potential for a lower structural growth rate, and lower P/E ratio, as the Dow Theory 'buy signal' of last year was reconfirmed last Wednesday."

What's fascinating here is that the Dow has now regained over 50% of the points that were lost back in the market's decline from late 2007 to early 2009. Saut makes special note that yes, the market is overbought. This is something we touched on yesterday with Jim Rogers' commentary as well. However, this overbought status has been overridden by momentum to the upside. No one can guess when this momentum will secede and therein lies the problem. Looking longer-term, Saut still believes this is the typical economic cycle (corporate profits surge and then inventory rebuild occurs).

He is cautious in the short-term but still likes accumulating strong stocks (preferably with dividends). He tosses out ideas such as Century Tel (CTL), Leggett & Platt (LEG), and Brinker (EAT). This meshes with what we've seen out of prominent hedge funds that also currently like high quality stocks.

Embedded below is the latest investment strategy from Jeff Saut:



You can directly download the .pdf here.

Interesting as always to hear the latest thoughts from their Chief Market Strategist. Be sure to check out Jeff Saut's 2010 market outlook as well. And for more research out of Raymond James, we've compiled their list of analysts' best stock picks for 2010.