Julian Robertson Interview: FANG Stocks Not Frothy At All

Tiger Management founder Julian Robertson was recently interviewed by CNBC.  Here's a summary and the full video below:

- When asked about Paul Tudor Jones' recent comments about stocks heading higher into year-end, Robertson said that, "I think there's a very good chance of that happening (in the next year) and I'm positioned accordingly."

-  He thinks it's possible that interest rates go up so high so fast that the Fed would have to ease up a bit.  But doesn't think rates will go 'wildly' up

- Says the President has done a reasonably good job, but could do with a dose of humility

- Tax cuts have helped corporate earnings but also the earnings of the middle class tremendously

- Feels a slowdown is at least 6 months and 'hopefully' 2 years away

- Tech stocks: he doesn't think FANG stocks are frothy at all, especially relative to the rest of the market. This is one area where he feels he differs in opinion from a lot of market participants.  Adds Microsoft (MSFT) to that bunch as these stocks have growth rates similar to their multiples

-  He likes the management at many of these companies, Facebook etc

-  Air Canada at 3x next year's cashflow is not an expensive stock and is 'beautifully run'.  Also likes Ryanair in Europe.  Doesn't really have any airline favorites in the US right now

-  Loves the banks, thinks they're very reasonably priced in relation to earnings.  Huge cashflow yields next year and thereafter.  Thinks they're in terrific shape, likes JPMorgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC)

-  Would tell grandchildren to own FB, BAC, JPM, probably Citigroup (C), which is 'reasonably priced'

Embedded below is the video of Julian Robertson's CNBC interview:

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What We're Reading ~ 5/9/18

Factfulness: Ten reasons we're wrong about the world [Hans Rosling]

Retail: is the beauty industry 'Amazon proof?' [FT]

The hyperfragmentation of retail and why the winners are digital ad platforms [Medium]

Attack of the micro brands [Medium]

Big beer struggles to tap into shifting consumer trends [Food Dive]

Morrisons' recovery is underway but is it in the share price? [UK Value Investor]

Behind the rise of activist short sellers [AFR]

Why T. Rowe Price likes Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook [Barrons]

A seed investing framework [Medium]

The Chinese unknown that's making Africa's phones [Bloomberg]

China wants its tech firms back, are CDRs the answer? [Bloomberg]

Why there's a worldwide shortage of vanilla [The Economist]

The Canadian king of New York: inside the rise of Brookfield [Bisnow]

At Uber, new CEO shifts gears [New Yorker]

Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook's hardest year, and what comes next [Vox]

Deep fiber: the next internet battleground [Deloitte]

CRISPR: the gene-editing tool revolutionizing biomedical research [CBS News]

Where's the invisible hand when you need it? [Stanley Druckenmiller]

The importance of high standards [Medium]

Tourbillon's Jason Karp on Invest Like The Best Podcast

Jason Karp, founder of hedge fund Tourbillon Capital recently appeared on Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast, Invest Like The Best, and he talked about a range of investing topics.  We posted extensive notes from the conversation with the full audio below.


On The Differences Between Public and Private Investing These Days

Years ago, 40-50% of stock market volume came from fundamental allocators.  Today it's less than 10%, so 90% of trading activity is coming from passive, quant, CTAs, risk premium captures, etc.  The vast majority of trading then is not coming from people who are concerned with 'what does this company do?' etc.  This leads to multi-day or even multiyear dislocations.

"The time for convergence between cashflows and the fundamentals of a business and stock price is usually 3-5 years at worst."

He said private companies tapping venture capital can now gain massive scale (i.e. Uber) without even going public.  Over the past 5 years there's been an 'explosion' of capital via VC's etc. 

"I believe the trends of why people allocating so aggressively privates is because the public markets have gotten harder. And people don't want to deal with daily, monthly mark-to-market."

He thinks there's a lot of edge left in private equity and a "more linear relationship between effort and outcome."  While that's applicable to public market investing, your time horizon has to be around 5 years.  But if you or your investors have a shorter horizon, it's less so.


On His Investment Style

"If I can find deep value, where the cashflows are growing, which is extremely rare, then that's the best case scenario.  My primary first variable is: 'are the cashflows growing?' Because growth solves a lot of sins."  If cashflows are growing, you can be wrong on the valuation.

They'll take the price today and instead of doing a DCF, he'll do it in reverse and try to figure out what's priced in today's stock and what would have to happen for it to be worth x.

He says that with deep value stocks, most have problems.  "All the cheap stocks have things that are very, very wrong with them.  So you're inherently in an adverse selection pool to try and find the frog that you can kiss that turns into a prince, when most of them are frogs and you're going to get warts on your face.  I just think there's an easier game to play."

On general investment advice he's learned over the years: "It's very important for you to keep your consumer hat on at all times, and remember that your gut instinct about how you feel about the product and experience... is so important."  He compared it a bit to a Peter Lynch-esque approach.  It helps you spot trends much earlier.


Talking Stocks

He thinks Facebook (FB) and Alphabet (GOOG) are surprisingly cheap given how entrenched they are in your everyday life.  He says FB's Instagram specifically is going to grow like crazy with businesses.  There's highly cyclical companies that are trading at around the same valuations, which is kind of crazy.

3 types of edge in market:  information edge, which is largely gone.  Analytical edge still exists and it's based on how you process information versus others.  Structural edge is where he sees the most opportunity: being able to stomach volatility via long-term holding etc. 

"There's more opportunity than I've ever seen in my career for duration... ever."  He says there's so many stocks that screen poorly and others that screen extremely well and are getting very crowded.

He thinks quality, safe, low volatility stocks are very overextended and then there's others that are more value and a little hairier... the disconnect between fundamental value and where the price is, is the largest he's seen in his career.


Industries To Watch For The Future

Karp feels health and wellness is one of the most interesting places to be doing research both in public and private markets right now.  The megatrend here is people focusing on less processed foods, not caring about brand, mainly just wanting quality products.  He thinks the trend is here to stay because once people find out about all the chemicals in their food and how it affects test animals or humans, there's no turning back.  And a lot of it will be demographics since millennials are so young and already focused on this.

He also feels cannabis is going to be one of the biggest industries in this country in the next 5-10 years.  He says it's much more valuable to be learning about this than crypto.  Many of these stocks will go to zero but many will also go up ten-fold.  As the tipping point has hit with legalization starting to happen, he thinks there will be alpha there.


On Hiring

He says that knowledge and passion are the two most important factors in hiring people.  The first is easy to find, the second's not.  And it's the more important of the two.  You want the people working for you to actually enjoy what they do. 

The third variable is emotional intelligence and it's the hardest to find.  He thinks it's more important than IQ.  It's about the ability to control yourself, have empathy, see other points of view, and rapidly change your opinion.  In the investment industry, these are crucial. 

He hires a lot of athletes due to the competitive nature (something we've heard from Julian Robertson before), and people from military backgrounds due to training.  He's also found mothers to be spectacular due to their perspective on managing people and conflicts.  Instead of looking at a resume, look at what a person has been through or actually done.


Embedded below is the podcast interview with Tourbillon's Jason Karp:



And if you haven't already, be sure to check out Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast: Invest Like The Best.

What We're Reading ~ 2/28/18

On decision regret [A Wealth of Common Sense]

Why competitive advantages die [Collaborative Fund]

Notes from the Wharton restructuring & distressed conference [Reddit]

The case against Google [NYTimes]

Consumer goods: big brands battle with the little guys [FT]

The end of the low volatility regime [13D]

Myths and facts about "risk parity" [FT Alphaville]

Inside Facebook's two years of hell [Wired]

How Softbank, world's biggest tech investor, throws around its cash [WSJ]

Canada's housing market flirts with disaster [FT]

Everything you need to know about 5G [IEEE Spectrum]

Inside T-Mobile's big, brash comeback [Fortune]

Boeing is killing it by squeezing its suppliers [Bloomberg]

From imitation to innovation: how China became a tech superpower [Wired]

Chinese tourists are taking over the earth [Bloomberg]

There's a global race to control batteries - and China is winning [WSJ]

Didi Chuxing took on Uber and won, now it's taking on the world [Wired]

Autonomous cars: no one wants to let Google win the war for maps all over again [Bloomberg]

Dyson bets on electric cars to shakeup industry [FT]

How to succeed in business?  Do less [WSJ]

Stan Druckenmiller Interview: Likes Amazon & Tencent, Short Retail

CNBC's Kelly Evans recently interviewed legendary investor Stan Druckenmiller, who previously worked with George Soros and then started his own firm Duquesne (which he now runs as a family office).

Regarding interest rates, he says he wants to see normalization, not so much just rates rising, as he noted there's a difference between the two.  The former, he says, is about re-establishing a hurdle rate for investment.

"Bitcoin, art, wine, equities, credit... you name it.  Everything is one way up.  And there's huge distortions taking place and it's all in the name of this 2% inflation target. And when you get a misallocation of resources, it really hinders growth over the longer term."

He notes there's companies out there borrowing tons of money that shouldn't be and gave Steinhoff as an example (which he mentioned he had been short).

He doesn't own any bitcoin as he says he trades only what he knows.  "It's worth what people are willing to pay for it."

This year, Druckenmiller says he's done well in stocks but he's really mistraded macro.  "I'm not up double digits.  I'm having, relative to the opportunity set, a terrible year."  He's had a bad time in currency trading apparently but his excellent equities returns have bailed him out, so to speak.

Turning to equities for 2018, he doesn't buy the narrative that this is all about earnings.  He says it's all about central bank radicalism.

But for specific stocks, he really likes the stocks he owns long-term.  There's a lot of disruption going on in tech.  He's also been short retail throughout the year and he expects that theme to continue.

On the long side: "I love Amazon (AMZN).  This company, which everyone keeps quoting the multiple... is selling for less than 3x sales.  They're dramatically underearning.  You have to look at the long-term earnings power of the company.  I think (CEO Jeff) Bezos is incredible."

In China, Druckenmiller really likes Tencent (700.HK) as they're in payments, videos, cloud, gaming, and a huge platform (WeChat).  Like AMZN, they're also underearning and trading at 40x with a 40% growth rate, he says you're getting it at 1x growth rate.

Regarding Tesla (TSLA), he said he doesn't like to short great products (he gave himself one for his birthday a while back).  He questions the long-term financial model of the company, though.

On Apple (AAPL), he doesn't find it as exciting as AMZN, Facebook (FB), or Alphabet (GOOG).  He thinks AAPL might be overearning and doesn't own it but isn't short either.  He likes Workday (WDAY) as it fits into the new economy.

He doesn't think tax reform will impact the stock market as it's already priced in and anyways he feels the market is driven by central bank policy anyways.

Embedded below is the video of CNBC's full interview with Stan Druckenmiller:

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You can also read the full transcript of the interview here.

What We're Reading ~ 10/4/17

The Four: The hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook & Google [Scott Galloway]

The main fundamental skills of all investing [Collaborative Fund]

Skilled managers should hold fewer stocks [Institutional Investor]

Machine learning for investors: a primer [Alpha Architect]

Blue skies ahead for John Malone's LiLAC Group [Barrons]

Benedict Evans on the future of cars [EconTalk]

On the characteristics of aggregators [Stratechery]

Elon Musk versus the haters [Institutional Investors]

The new world of monopoly? What about flying? [Marginal Revolution]

Amazon makes up 43% of all online sales [Inc]

Millennials are moving to the suburbs, buying big SUVs [Bloomberg]

Media companies are finally getting serious about data and targeted advertising [Adweek]

Shopify is an excellent business [Tom Tunguz]

A negative piece on Shopify [Citron Research]

What We're Reading ~ 9/27/17

Your tolerance for investment risk is probably not what you think [WSJ]

Is value investing dead? Depends on how you measure it [WSJ]

What do the best investors do that the rest don't? [Behavioral Value]

We're going to need more Lithium [Bloomberg]

Mastering three strategies of organic growth [McKinsey]

DaVita: Warren and Charlie's excellent insurance gambit [SIRF]

Old interview with Chuck Akre - never sell the gems [Value Research]

The history of Sears predicts nearly everything Amazon is doing [The Atlantic]

Don't believe the headlines, traditional retailers are thriving online [VentureBeat]

How Kirkland Signature became one of Costco's biggest successes [WSJ]

Altaba's endgame could reward investors nicely [Barrons]

Netflix's Sarandos aims to build the next great Hollywood studio [Bloomberg]

Our entire credit bureau system is broken [The Verge]

Snapchat's influencers are fleeing to Instagram for money [Bloomberg]

How successful people make decisions differently [Fast Company]

What We're Reading ~ 8/31/17

The Emotionally Intelligent Investor: How Self-Awareness, Empathy & Intuition Drive Performance [Ravee Mehta]

The death of many brands [Intrinsic Investing]

The global economy coalescing around a few digital superpowers [HBR]

A dozen attributes of a scalable business [25iq]

On Disney's tough choice [Stratechery]

Beauty industry gears up for an ugly market share war [Barrons]

Javascript is eating the world [dev.to]

Blue Apron's struggles show why it's tough to make it with e-commerce subscription [Bloomberg]

Louis Vuitton knows fashion is a money pit and keeps throwing money at it [Bloomberg]

How brokerage app Robinhood got millennials to love the market [Fast Company]

Primer on the gaming sector [Ethereal Value]

How the three-tiered beer distribution system works [Fermentarium]

On the two systems that determine and influence every decision you make [Thrive]

What We're Reading ~ 7/19/17

How do you value a subscription business? [25iq]

The logic of patience [Value Investor India]

A look at BOFI Federal Savings: Annals of the Bank of Misery [SIRF]

On the struggles of shopping malls part 1 and part 2 [Adventures in Capitalism]

America's venerable food brands are struggling [WSJ]

Inside Formula One's (FWONK) race for world domination [FT]

A look at Liberty Braves Group (BATRA) [Yet Another Value Blog]

A new record high for US consumer debt [WSJ]

This telecom bet big on landlines and lost [WSJ]

Qatar: the global empire of a tiny country [Amrank]

10 years after the last bull began to fail, this market shows fewer signs of trouble [CNBC]

The personality trait that massively improves decision making [Inc]

This guilt-free ice cream is a cult hit, thanks to Instagram [Bloomberg]

Whitney Tilson's Presentation on Alphabet and Facebook

Whitney Tilson of Kase Capital Management gave a presentation at the 14th annual Value Investing Seminar in Italy on two stocks: Alphabet (GOOG) and Facebook (FB).

Tilson starts by doing a bit of a post-mortem on a call he made against Google some time ago. He points out that the company enjoys a flywheel of network effects and economies of scale: large user base > large advertiser base > better monetization > most R&D dollars > best product > high barriers to entry.


That's obviously not anything new, but he points out that valuation isn't crazy at 28x 2017 EPS and 13x EBITDA estimates given that the vast majority of incremental ad spending is ending up on GOOG or Facebook's platforms.  And if you back out GOOG's cash ($126 per share) and 'other bets' ($50 per share), you get a valuation much more in line with the S&P for a company that he says is "vastly superior" to the average corporation.

On Facebook (FB), Tilson points out the company has higher margins than GOOG, and revenue growth is higher as well.

Embedded below is Tilson's presentation on GOOG and FB:



You can download a .pdf copy here.

What We're Reading ~ 5/3/17

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail [Christensen]

Warren Buffett's money managers Combs and Weschler speak [Yahoo Finance]

The new moats [Greylock]

Staying competitive as the world changes [Collaborative Fund]

A look at Seritage Growth Properties [Barrons]

Profile of Fidelity's Will Danoff [FT]

How Trump's pick for top Antitrust cop may shape competition [NYTimes]

Big name food brands lose battle of the grocery aisle [WSJ]

Thoughts on retailer L Brands [Intrinsic Investing]

Is the lingerie market on the verge of another disruption? (possible NSFW image) [Business of Fashion]

Amazon strategy teardown: building new business pillars [CB Insights]

UnderArmour tripped up in its run to become the world's next sneaker giant [Qz]

CEO pay is out of control [Fortune]

Apple's China problem [Stratechery]

With $6.2 billion spectrum spree, DISH's Charlie Ergen buys himself options [Bloomberg]

Can Facebook fix its own worst bug? [NYTimes]

Dyson is the Apple of Appliances [NYTimes]

Elon Musk's 2017 TED talk interview [YouTube]

What We're Reading ~ 4/19/17

The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble To Get Inside Our Heads [Tim Wu]

Why we think we're better investors than we are [NYTimes]

Inside the hotel industry's plan to combat Airbnb [NYTimes]

Two law professors mimic activist hedge fund: a corporate raiding adventure [The Atlantic]

Vanguard is growing faster than everybody else combined [NYTimes]

Q&A with Blackrock's (BLK) Larry Fink [Bloomberg]

Why Facebook (FB) keeps beating every rival: it's the network of course [NYTimes]

A look at the first decade of augmented reality [Ben Evans]

Barry Ritholtz's rules of valuations [The Big Picture]

The making of a brand [Collaborative Fund]

Is American retail at a historic tipping point? [NYTimes]

E-commerce is a bear [Andy Dunn]

American Express, challenged by Chase, is losing the 'snob' war [NYTimes]

The potential of graphene to revolutionize the airline industry [Richard Branson]

A day in the life of a food vendor [NYTimes]

What We're Reading ~ 4/12/17

Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms [David Evans]

Beating the odds when you launch a new venture [Harvard Business Review]

Consolidated learnings: What I think I know about investing [Medium]

Inside Blue Apron's meal kit machine [Bloomberg]

Is it last call for craft beer? [NYTimes]

Americans haven't been this optimistic about stocks for nearly two decades [Bloomberg]

The gap between sentiment and certainty is stunning [WSJ]

On the ramifications of Brexit [Arp Investments]

How Canada completely lost its mind over real estate [Macleans]

Why Costco (COST) loves store sales: you try shipping a tub of mayo [WSJ]

Q&A with Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky [Fortune]

Mobile video to grow almost 900% by 2021 Cisco predicts [Fierce Wireless]

Inside Verizon's go90, a video app mix between YouTube and Netflix [Business Insider]

Your focus should be on saving money, not investment returns [Collaborative Fund]

Instagram (FB) 'influencer' marketing is now a $1 billion industry [MediaKix]

Quick video on Zara: How a Spaniard invented fast fashion [YouTube]

Pat Dorsey Interview With Young Investors Society

Pat Dorsey was recently interviewed by Young Investors Society.  He's the founder of Dorsey Asset Management and prior to that worked as the Director of Equity Research for Morningstar. 

He's also the author of two books:  The Little Book That Builds Wealth and then The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing.  Here's some takeaways from his talk:


- His book talks about moats and competitive advantage.  He wished he put more in his book about the business that is building the moat, versus one that already has one.  A younger biz with a longer runaway and each dollar of incremental cashflow is being invested at an increment ROIC.

- If you've got long-term time horizon, smaller pool of capital, and investors ok with volatility, your returns are probably gonna be superior. 

- For companies, the ability to reinvest is where you really maximize things

- On short selling:  Highlighted the not-so-great risk/reward of only being able to make 100% on your position but the potential to lose an infinite amount (if the short just keeps going up and up).  "Shorting is tough because time is not on your side."

- Short selling is very hard and the few good short sellers he's met never ever ever short because of valuation.  They short because a business is fraudulent or fundamentally flawed.  For shorting candidates, look for businesses that both raises equity and pays a dividend.

- On Snapchat (SNAP): Thinks it could be a smoking hole in the ground after a while.  Mentioned to look at the company's growth rate once Facebook (FB) rolled out its 'stories' copycat feature on its Instagram platform.  Said SNAP needs to find a monetization model over time.

- Said investing in DryShips (DRYS) is kind of like playing poker with Kim Jung Il.

- Make sure it's a business you can understand, don't ignore management.

- On Facebook (FB), which Dorsey owns: seems almost too obvious; has huge topline but still growing at over 50%.  Global advertising market is huge (opportunity).  Advertising grows a little bit more than global GDP but digital ads have grown even faster.  Advertisers follow attention.  2 companies get 80% of incremental ad spend: FB and Alphabet (GOOGL).  But if you had to take the stock and lock it up and not touch it for 10 years, you probably can't do that with FB because the landscape changes too much.  FB is hyper-aware of the risk of declining user engagement.  The current valuation does not assume dominance 10 years from now.  Close to 17-18x EBIT now, growing over 50%.

- "We worry about all our positions.  If you ever have a position you're not worried about, you're probably in trouble."

- Single biggest lesson is to avoid endowment bias.  Just because he owns it doesn't mean he should trust management more.  "My biggest mistakes have definitely come when I've not kept the bar as high as it should be with management quality or business quality."

- You can never have too high of a hurdle rate for businesses you evaluate.  You don't need to own 100 stocks, you're not running a Fidelity mutual fund.  Maybe 10 in your personal account, or 30 if you're running a fund

- Sticky note on his computer: "No FOMO"  or No Fear Of Missing Out.

- Ask yourself: Does it fit your personality?  Does it fit what you're trying to do as an investor?

The publisher disabled the ability to embed the video but you can view it here at the Young Investors Society YouTube channel.

We also recently posted up Mark Cuban's interview with Young Investors Society as well.

Top 10 Stocks That Matter Most To Hedge Funds Per Goldman Sachs (Q4 2016)

Goldman Sachs' quarterly hedge fund trend monitor outlines what stocks matter most to hedge funds.  Here's the list as the fourth quarter 2016:


Top 10 Stocks That Matter Most To Hedge Funds: Q4 2016

- Alphabet (GOOGL / GOOG)

- Facebook (FB)

- Amazon.com (AMZN)

- Bank of America (BAC)

- Charter Communications (CHTR)

- Apple (AAPL)

- Microsoft (MSFT)

- Yahoo (YHOO)

- Time Warner (TWX)

- NXP Semiconductor (NXPI)


As you can see, it's quite tech-heavy.   The major exception is Bank of America (BAC), which was a consensus buy in Q4 among hedge funds we track in our newsletter.

For more on what stocks hedge funds have been buying & selling, check out the brand new issue of our premium newsletter that reveals the portfolios of 25 top funds.

What We're Reading ~ 2/8/17

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics [Richard Thaler]

Honored to be listed in 2016's most influential finance Twitter accounts [Sentieo]

Shameless plug: if you don't already, follow @marketfolly on Twitter

Mitigating short exposure: learning from others' mistakes [CFA Institute]

Interview with Ed Thorp, the man who beat the casinos & markets [FT]

Stop chasing the wrong kind of growth [Harvard Business Review]

On analyst ratings and the institutional imperative [Base Hit Investing]

Old Mutual boss on how to run an active fund patiently [Daily Mail]

FIZZ: The secret history of the LaCroix fad [Bon Appetit]

How streaming is changing music consumption [HeavyBlogisHeavy]

Cannabalization, intense competition both roadblocks for Chipotle [Peridot]

The individual investors' performance incentive system [Rational Walk]

A look at NAFTA and American manufacturing [Vox]

Fidelity's bond king banks on Trump reflation trade [Bloomberg]

Facebook is trying everything to re-enter China and it's not working [WSJ]

BlackRock's robot stock-pickers post record losses [Bloomberg]

What We're Reading ~ 1/25/17

US investors favored passive funds over active by a record margin in 2016 [Morningstar]

The best investment writings of 2016 [Meb Faber]

On 3G Capital and the Kraft Heinz merger [Fortune]

A chat with Daniel Kahneman [Collaborative Fund]

Lunch with Bill Gates [FT]

What is your edge? [Base Hit Investing]

On expected risk [A Wealth of Common Sense]



Simon Property Group fights to reinvent the shopping mall [Fortune]

Facebook: Inside Instagram's reinvention [Recode]

Amazon expands into ocean freight [WSJ]

A pitch on Bolloré [Greenwood Investors]

Trump team compiles infrastructure priority list [McClatchy]

New FCC chief wants to destroy net neutrality [CNBC]

The great A.I. awakening [NYTimes]

Summary of some of the latest tech products featured at CES [Learning By Shipping]

Americans use debit cards twice as much as credit [Marketwatch]

China's biggest messaging app is on a collision course with Apple [TechInAsia]

How Social Cash made WeChat the app for everything [Fast Company]

When the Chinese come out to shop [OliverWyman]

How Netflix lost big to Amazon in India [Backchannel]

The best and worst airlines of 2016 [WSJ]

Carlos Slim's profit margins are right where Mexico wants them [Bloomberg]

Reasons to buy bonds in 2017 [Peter Lazaroff]

What We're Reading ~ 11/30/16

Warren Buffett's meeting with University of Maryland students [UMD]

Is the next financial crisis on its way? [Steve Eisman]

A write-up on the impending Hilton (HLT) spinoff [Clark Street Value]

CBRE (CBG): industry deep dive to detect an emerging moat [Punch Card]

A look at Discovery Communications (DISCA/K) [Contrarian Edge]

Sustainable sources of competitive advantage [Collaborative Fund]

Why deep learning matters and what's next for AI [Algorithmia]

The unexpected genius of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg [Fortune]

Google's online travel adventure upsets its biggest advertisers [Bloomberg]

A billionaire's dreams of creating a guns empire [NYMag]

If oil refiners crash, so will the economy [WSJ]

Mastercard, Visa set to reap spoils of India's war on cash [Bloomberg]

How Best Buy (BBY) fought Amazon [WSJ]

The evolution of media & entertainment: conversation with CEOs [YouTube]

How to get comfortable with being umcomfortable [Inc]

Why gut feelings may really help you make risky decisions [Washington Post]

Why stoicism is one of the best mind-hacks ever devised [Aeon]

What We're Reading ~ 8/10/16

When you don't know what you don't know [Medium]

The mirage of relative performance [ai-cio]

On investing and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable [Cordant Wealth]

Jim Grant: negative interest rates will end badly [CFA Institute]

Mark Hart bets China's currency will collapse [Bloomberg]

Interview with Daniel Kahneman [The Big Picture]

Daniel Dennett's most useful critical thinking tools [Farnam Street]

A look at Jefferies [Dealbook]

Coho Capital's pitch on Amazon [ValueWalk]

Think Amazon's drone delivery is a gimmick? Think again [NYTimes]

An e-commerce business' experience with the Amazon behemoth [Medium]

What happens to tons of jobs with autonomous vehicle disruption? [NPR] 

Why we pine for manufacturing [New Yorker]

Mark Zuckerberg on the next 10 years [The Verge]

Playing the long game inside Tim Cook's Apple [FastCompany]

Google and Facebook killed free media [Bloomberg]

What disruption really means [Hardbound]

What We're Reading ~ 6/22/16

Ev Williams became a billionaire creating the open web, now he's betting against it [The Atlantic]

The perilous task of forecasting [WSJ]

On Uber's battle for China [FT]

Why LaCroix sparkling water is suddenly everywhere [Vox]

TV advertising's surprising strength and inevitable fall [Stratechery]

Can Netflix survive in the new world it created? [NYTimes]

The business of too much TV [Vulture]

It's 'terrifying' competing with Netflix and Amazon [CNBC]

Spending money to make money, a.k.a. stock based compensation [Chamath Palihapitiya]

All money is made at points of friction [Alex Danco]

An example of an investment checklist [Covenant Lite]

Ideas are not cheap [Daniel Tillett]

Valuation online class [NYU Stern]

Mary Meeker's 2016 internet trends report [Recode]

China Connect: key mobile market trends in China [Slideshare]

The state of digital media 2016 [Slideshare]

A look at the event ticket industry [The Ringer]

The future of agriculture [Economist]

Hot air millionaires: how Drybar became a $100 million business [BuzzFeed]

Simple financial advice for new grads [Morgan Housel]