T. Rowe Price: The Man, The Company & The Investment Philosophy [Cornelius Bond]
How to take the outside view [McKinsey]
Pitch on short Tesla [Dropbox]
What is Amazon [Zack Kanter]
Allen Zhang on the key product principles of WeChat [WeChat]
KKR is too cheap [Yet Another Value Blog]
Buying is easy, selling is hard [Bloomberg]
In 12 minutes, everything went wrong: LionAir crash [NYTimes]
The SaaS busines model & metrics [Matrix Partners]
How an app for gamers went mainstream [The Atlantic]
The risk of low growth stocks: Prestige Brands [Intrinsic Investing]
Franchise value: video game IP vs movie IP [Medium]
The 20 craziest investment facts ever [Irrelevant Investor]
Netflix is the most intoxicating portal [NYTimes]
Farmbelt bankruptcies are soaring [WSJ]
ESPN's ex-President wants to build the Netflix of sports [Bloomberg]
Inside HBO's plan to win the streaming wars [Vanity Fair]
Interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey [Rolling Stone]
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
What We're Reading ~ 3/20/19
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
What We're Reading ~ 6/13/18
Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments [Michael Batnick]
Assessing the debt picture [Fat Pitch]
Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report [KPCB]
Netflix: inside the binge factory [Vulture]
Proprietary product distribution is better than sliced bread [25iq]
The cult of Peloton: reinventing the fitness industry [Adweek]
How millennials became the world's most powerful consumers [FT]
What's driving the billion-dollar natural beauty movement? [Fast Company]
Gucci strikes gold in China, thanks to youth who spend it all [Bloomberg]
How the game Fortnite captured teens' hearts and minds [New Yorker]
Spotify vs Pandora: which is winning the ad-supported game? [Billboard]
A worrying turn ahead for auto loans [WSJ]
NASCAR tries to keep pace in today's ridesharing world [Washington Post]
On watches: an investment on your wrist [NYTimes]
A framework for analyzing factor returns [OSAM]
Thursday, December 14, 2017
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.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
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]
Thursday, July 6, 2017
What We're Reading ~ 7/6/17
A look at Trupanion (TRUP) - a long-term compounder [Variant Views]
Jim Chanos: US economy is worse than you think [INET Economics]
A chat with Peter Bernstein [Jason Zweig]
Bob Rodriguez: We're witnessing development of "perfect storm" [Advisor Perspectives]
A skeptic's view of popular stocks [Barrons]
Bruce Berkowitz seeks return to glory by betting on Sears (SHLD) [WSJ]
Stockpicking is dying because there are no more stocks to pick [WSJ]
Surveying the direct to consumer landscape [Medium]
Tencent rules China; the problem is the rest of the world [Bloomberg]
A pitch on Cars.com (CARS) [Barrons]
Habits of people who know how to bring out the best in others [Fast Company]
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
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]
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
What We're Reading ~ 10/26/16
The $108 billion man who has beaten the market [WSJ]
Cash: the most hated asset class on the planet [Felder Report]
What you can learn from family business [HBR]
On the future of video [REDEF]
The intelligent industrial revolution [nVidia]
Five market insights from Peter Lynch [Ivanhoff]
Explaining what made the internet 'break' recently [Gizmodo]
U-Haul parent Amerco (UHAL): ready to move [Barrons]
Arbs stay on sidelines of AT&T, Timer Warner deal [WSJ]
Private equity is sitting a ton of cash [ai-cio]
Interview with CEO of new exchange IEX [Bloomberg]
Why negative churn is such a powerful growth mechanism [Tom Tunguz]
WeChat works to maintain startup culture as it matures [WSJ]
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
What We're Reading ~ 9/21/16
But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past [Klosterman]
Profile of Alphabet's CFO Ruth Porat [Fortune]
The third transportation revolution [Lyft's CEO]
Electric vehicles: it's not just about the car [Bloomberg New Energy Finance]
US setting federal ground rules for self-driving car push [Forbes]
Profile of Ulta's CEO Mary Dillon [Fortune]
2016 US mobile app report [comscore]
On the inevitability of everything 'in the cloud' [Digits To Dollars]
8 price action signals every trader should know [Tradecity]
A look at Spanish banks [Exane]
Heavy equipment glut weighs on machine makers [WSJ]
Inside the cannibalistic culture of China's Tencent [Bloomberg]
Q&A with Chase Carey [Formula 1]
How Wells Fargo's high pressure sales culture spiraled out of control [WSJ]
A look through the eyes of beer wholesalers [Beverage World]
AT&T wants to blanket the country with gigabit wi-fi from utility poles [Gizmodo]
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
What We're Reading ~ 8/31/16
Jesse Livermore: The man who sold America short in 1929 [Tom Rubython]
50 of the best investing blogs [Acquirers Multiple]
Why value investors are different [Seth Klarman]
Paul Tudor Jones and the nature of the beast [A Wealth of Common Sense]
Be mindful of rich valuations in low volatility stocks [Morningstar]
What are interest rates forecasting for stocks? [Cordant]
Are you smarter than an algorithm? [Financialist]
A new payoff to risky decisions [Psychology Today]
Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can [Tony Isola]
German savers lose faith in banks, stash cash [WSJ]
Coach's brand transformation fake-out [Glenn Chan]
Can TripAdvisor turn things around? [Skift]
Dollar Stores' startling admission: half of US consumers are in dire straits [Zero Hedge]
Tencent: WeChat's world [Economist]
The twilight of China's online consumer paradise [Bloomberg]
Why Amazon is suddenly swimming in cash [Internet Retailer]
The war on cash [The Long and Short]
