What other tech stock to consider?

[AudubonB]

And here is a reasonably useful article from this afternoon's Bloomberg feed describing more about Hedosophia and its Social Capital parent company:
With $600 Million 'Blank Check' IPO, VCs Experiment on Startup Listings

 

[ggr]

Kuka Aktiengesellschaft (KUKAF) (You know, the pretty robots...) are up nicely over the last few weeks/months. 85% in one year. I wonder if it's related to them shipping lots of robots to our favorite car company.

 

[AudubonB]

I bought a package of KUKAF and FANUC - Fanuc is the big Japanese robotics leader, and the other half of Fremont's robot package - on May 11 of this year. Fanuc was a significant investment of ours back when I was institutional in the 1970s 80s and 90s. Kuka is up 34% over those four months; Fanuc at break-even. Together, they account for just under 3% of our portfolios.

 

[kenliles]

BlackBerry rises 5% on self-driving car software partnership with Delphi

 

[Lump]

Has the AMZN effect on COST begun? COST dropped 6% yesterday.
What Does Wall Street Think Of Costco Now?

 

[GoTslaGo]

Has the AMZN effect on COST begun? COST dropped 6% yesterday.
What Does Wall Street Think Of Costco Now?
View attachment 252460

Possibly, COST is now offering delivery! Wife is looking at it now. Now they just need a fleet of EV local delivery vehicles...

IMHO, there's a lot of good companies being bumped down by AMZN effect (we bought and sold LOW for a profit because of this). From our experience so far, some older retailers are getting very aggressive about competing online with AMZN... and pretty effectively.

We've had better and more timely delivery of products from WMT than AMZN at this point. So far every shipment from AMZN the last 2-3 months has been delayed... some lost. Whereas all of our purchases from WMT have been on time. WMT just needs to learn how to pack things better (super big box for little stuff...that being said it doesn't break). Needless to say we've been ordering less from AMZN.

Competition is good for the consumer. As an investor not so good.

PS--thanks for pointing our COST P/E ratio previously. Very helpful!

 

[anticitizen13.7]

What tech stock NOT to buy: anything that has numerous threads, relative to other stocks, on Reddit investing subs. The time to get onboard is before the masses realize the potential of a company.

 

[AudubonB]

Yikes:
Does that advice suggest that someone has to comb the entire internet trying to locate the dog that didn't bark? That sounds like a lot of effort indeed.

 

[generalenthu]

I have been looking at ANET, arista networks, which has been eating Cisco's lunch, especially at the high end of routers.

Cisco seems to be so scared of them, that they hit anet with a bunch of law suits to slow them down. There is obviously more to the story, but it's growing like gang busters, has great management, fantastic product, and possibly yet to be valued fully, even though it's been public for about a couple of years.

It's also debt free, has good bit of cash in hand and very high operating and net margins.

 

[Ulmo]

I found this discussion interesting for finance instrument educational purposes. Yes, it's not about Tesla, but just insert your brain into the topic (like any financial instrument) and learn something. It's one man's opinion, yada yada. I found it interesting. Oh, yes, it's about a thing, and the person talking has a particular view of that thing; if you don't want to interact with that thing today, that's not up to me today, and the purpose of me posting is not related directly to that thing; it is instead about the market dynamic part of it.

 

[generalenthu]

Yet Out of all my swing-for-the-fences investments, Tesla is the only one who has not experienced that exponential growth moment.

@Causalien Bringing this to a different thread. Curious what these other investments are if you do not mind.

 

[Causalien]

@Causalien Bringing this to a different thread. Curious what these other investments are if you do not mind.

An interesting one is weed stocks aiming for marijuana legalization in Canada. But I did this one conservatively and spread to many different ones as I don't understand the space. While I was doing the research, every one of their finances look like a ponzi scheme run by known convicted scammers. They still do, there's just too much money slushing into the space. I realized that I need to get in when 2 years ago, I attended a weed vendor gathering where I live. It was basically a government sanctioned outdooe pothead party with the full support of EMS and 5-O. According to vendors in the area, it's doubling in size every year. In Canada, I suspect it also became an alternative mean to Casinos and real estate to launder black money.

One space that I have been secretly accumulating in is the low orbit satellite stocks. I am near 90% done with my accumulation now so I am more ok to discuss my thinking with this. The space has not experienced an exponential growth yet as it is still too early. If you ponder logically, with space x lowering the launch cost, the next tech boom sector will be related to space.

So what I did was I looked through SpaceX launch manifest and check out the interesting companies or people who manufacture their equipments. Then I look at their financials. Part of the reason I finally picked the stock I did after combing through this were influenced by my own travels and world view. Adventuring through remote area of the world really brought me to the world of satellite communications.

This is an example of how I go through the stages of pondering one after another to arrive at a stock I will speculate in.

 

[AudubonB]

Hedosophia now has been trading for a month. It remains difficult to track - it doesn't yet show up on many available stock chart services - so here is how it has fared. Overall trading volume has been predictably low. I don't expect much activity prior to any announcement of its first "acquisition".

 

[durkie]

Hedosophia now has been trading for a month. It remains difficult to track - it doesn't yet show up on many available stock chart services - so here is how it has fared. Overall trading volume has been predictably low. I don't expect much activity prior to any announcement of its first "acquisition".

counterpoint on hedosophia by the the excellent matt levine: ICOs, VCs, IPOs and SPACs

i think he makes some good points about the problem hedosophia claims to be solving, and the hefty share they're taking for themselves.

 

[TMSE]

counterpoint on hedosophia by the the excellent matt levine: ICOs, VCs, IPOs and SPACs

i think he makes some good points about the problem hedosophia claims to be solving, and the hefty share they're taking for themselves.

Here is Matt Levine’s point about hefty share:
“A final thing about SPACs is that they are so expensive. Banks charge a rack rate of about 7 percent for initial public offerings, though big sexy tech IPOs tend to be done more cheaply. SPAC sponsors compensate themselves rather more lavishly. Hedosophia's sponsor -- a Cayman Islands company owned by Palihapitiya and his co-founder -- invested $25,000 to found the SPAC. In exchange for that nominal payment, and their work on finding a company to take public, they get 20 percent of the SPAC's stock. (They are also are putting in another $12 million or so to buy warrants in connection with its IPO.) A 20 percent fee for taking a company public is just ... more ... than a 7 percent fee. And that's not even counting the 5.5 percent fee that Credit Suisse charged for taking Hedosophia public! Something like a quarter of every dollar that investors are putting into Hedosophia is going to compensate financiers for doing the work of (ultimately) taking a unicorn public, which is a funny way to make that process more efficient.”

Here is where Matt Levine is missing the point: Banks will take any company public as long as they pay 7% fee. IPO is just a process for them. What Chamath brings to table, which these banks can’t, is the ability to identify the next Facebook or LinkedIn. There is no certainty that he will, but he has better odds of identifying one than those banks on Wall Street.

 

[xhawk101]

Agree that blockchain technology investments are very interesting. Top stocks, companies, and cryptocurrencies to invest in for the blockchain boom

 

[TMSE]

Agree that blockchain technology investments are very interesting. Top stocks, companies, and cryptocurrencies to invest in for the blockchain boom

Nearly everyone agress that blockchain technology will disrupt many industries, however there is some vocal opposition to Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Every country can adapt blockchain technology to their monetary system and create their own bitcoins. Why should Bitcoin be any special? Why should anyone buy them?

 

[Cattledog]

MU

Good reading if you're into 13-part trilogies:

DRAM behind Micron’s 16-Year High Fiscal 4Q17 Earnings - Market Realist

 

[TMSE]

MU

Good reading if you're into 13-part trilogies:

DRAM behind Micron’s 16-Year High Fiscal 4Q17 Earnings - Market Realist

I am currently long MU, but might soon close that position by this year end. MU is by no means a monopoly as many newish MU bulls believe. It is still in a race-to-the-bottom commodity business. I made a ton and lost a ton on this stock. Be careful out there. Key points to ponder about:

1) MU's 2/3rd revenue and 80% of profits are from DRAM.

2) MU is atleast a half to one full node generation behind the industry leader Samsung. Everytime Samsung ramps up on the newer smaller node, oversupply ensues and customers gravitate towards newer and better product from Samsung. As DRAM is highly price-inelastic (for example, adding more DRAM than required doesn't improve performance in smartphones), the leader, atleast temporarily captures higher market share, only to give it away later as laggards like MU and Hynix catch up. This is what you see as the infamous Memory boom/bust cycle.

3) A counter to point 2 above though is the 'end of the runway' or the fundamental limits reached in what can be achived with node shrinkage in DRAM. When no further improvements can be made in DRAM manufacturing technology, leaders and laggards will become one and the same, and that could herald a new era of oligopoly. Only then, boom-bust cycles will be a thing of the past and all three DRAM players - Samsung, MU and Hynix - will play nicely with each other to maximize their profits. I am expecting one more boom-bust cycle before they reach oligopoly nirvana.

 

[xhawk101]

Nearly everyone agress that blockchain technology will disrupt many industries, however there is some vocal opposition to Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Every country can adapt blockchain technology to their monetary system and create their own bitcoins. Why should Bitcoin be any special? Why should anyone buy them?

Yes we're on the same page. Bitcoin may not be unique/enduring beyond the next bubble; blockchain-based solutions, however appear to hold tremendous promise.