What other tech stock to consider?

[Cosmacelf]

Im actually surprised more people haven't mentioned square ($SQ) in this thread. TSLA is Ark's favorite stock, however, square is second in terms of position size in multiple etf's they manage.

The fintech sector has a lot going on right now. Banking the unbanked and piggy backing on cryto currencies with the cash app (digital wallet), is definitely something to watch Square try to execute on.

Curious to see if anyone's done any DD on it?

Here are a couple related industry primers for anyone interested.
The-future-history-payments-how-world-is-moving-away-from-cash -18.pdf
World-Payments-Report-2018.pdf

While I really like digital payments in general, the irony is that the only two companies actually making money in this area are Visa and Mastercard, and their stock prices reflect that. ApplePay, Paypal, and Square all do not have any significant online or point of sale money transfer system. They all rely on credit cards for actual money transfer. They are just an overlay onto top of credit cards. And the credit card companies get the lions share of profit from each transaction because of this.

I find it incredibly mind bending that the ONE GUY who knew this 20 years ago and who had a very successful startup to directly challenge Visa and Mastercard's defacto monopoly was ... Elon Musk.

His X.com (later merging with Paypal) was a serious attempt to create true online banking and would have eliminated the need for credit cards for online transactions. He understood that he needed people to deposit money into their Paypal accounts and use their Paypal account as their bank account. This would allow them to send and receive money without using credit cards. Unfortunately for us, there were power struggles for company control between VCs and the entrepreneurs and then eBay wanted to buy them (because eBay had stupidly become beholden to Paypal), so in the end, eBay did buy them. And then eBay effectively shut down the online banking part of Paypal and the company languished for decades...

So, my question is, does Square have any hope of doing both online and point of sale physical transactions without the need to clear transactions through the credit card network? Because if they don't, then there isn't enough value there...

 

[STARR X]

My business does a few international transactions every quarter and I have always hated the $25.00 international wire transfer fee my bank charges me. Several years ago I stumbled upon Veem, which works outside of the bank’s network. Just like PayPal, transactions are between checking accounts and uses blockchain to move the money. Very satisfactory solution but VC owned so not available to invest in yet. But this is how you get around the Visa, MasterCard and Amex network too. Might this be what Square is trying to do too?

 

[defc0n]

Why is AMD’s valuation so high? What am I failing to understand there?

 

[ammulder]

Why is AMD’s valuation so high? What am I failing to understand there?

Intel has been stuck on their current manufacturing process for several years longer than expected, so their products aren't improving much. Bit of a CF, really. Whereas AMD has gone to a better/smaller process and is building much more competitive products than a few years ago. By way of example, AWS started offering an option for AMD chips, whereas they used to be all Intel. A lot of enthusiasts going AMD as well.

I know less about the state of the art in graphics, but I know AMD has continued to win Apple deals, at least.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Why is AMD’s valuation so high? What am I failing to understand there?

For the first time, AMD’s processors are outperforming Intel’s at similar price points. Presumably this is translating into increased revenue, and thus stock price.

 

[defc0n]

with 260+ PE I'd have to expect their earnings to increase ~ 6x within a few years. I guess the market must believe it.

 

[Sanny]

Any ideas on good plays on 5g that are not overvalued yet?

 

[defc0n]

Any ideas on good plays on 5g that are not overvalued yet?

You’d have to first sell me on the importance of 5g itself

 

[Sanny]

You’d have to first sell me on the importance of 5g itself

I mean come on, all people already have 4g phones and need a good reason for upgrade. 5g seems a better reason than a notch/no notch or wireless charging or talking poop emoji..

 

[Cosmacelf]

I mean come on, all people already have 4g phones and need a good reason for upgrade. 5g seems a better reason than a notch/no notch or wireless charging or talking poop emoji..

5G is mostly a carrier upgrade. It allows carriers to deliver pretty much the same bandwidth as LTE to more people. Of course, carriers are using it as a marketing tool, but so what.

As far as plays, well, you know, the entire stock market is well valued (some would say overvalued). So looking for bargains, I would not be looking at large companies that everyone knows about.

Instead, I would be looking at IPOs or companies that very recently went through an IPO and seeing if there is any value left there. That's how I picked up some good stocks recently (DOCU, ZS). I also liked UI (WiFi and WISP markets) and bought that before they had their recent "Tesla" moment and zoomed. But those stocks are now kinda rich in valuation.

My advice is to be looking at companies in an area you really truly know something about. If you don't think you know more than an average person about a company, then you probably shouldn't be investing in individual stocks.

Absent finding companies that are undervalued (and this thread has had precious little information about that), a defensive move right now would be to buy bonds (yes really) in anticipation of a stock market correction, at which point, you sell those bonds at a profit (since interest rates would likely fall in a correction) and then you can buy all those juicy stocks that are too highly valued right now. Of course, if a stock market correction doesn't happen for another year or two, you've just forgone 10-20% (or more) appreciation. Decisions, decisions...

 

[defc0n]

I mean come on, all people already have 4g phones and need a good reason for upgrade. 5g seems a better reason than a notch/no notch or wireless charging or talking poop emoji..

it is a ton more resources needed for little gain over what we already have today (LTE and WiFi)

 

[AudubonB]

Qualcomm has come up for discussion here before. I have a very small, but low ($35) acquisition price position in QCOM.

This week at CES they announced a platform, "Snapdragon Ride", that will enable Autonomous Vehicle manufacturers access to a powerful, small, super-low energy consuming chipset for autonomous driving. It is more a competition for Intel/Mobileye and Nvidia than it is either competition for or potential product for Tesla, in my understanding. QCOM has risen well - though not busting through any doors - since the Monday morning announcement: +3.9%, against the S&P's 1.0% rise. Is anyone following this more closely?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Qualcomm has come up for discussion here before. I have a very small, but low ($35) acquisition price position in QCOM.

This week at CES they announced a platform, "Snapdragon Ride", that will enable Autonomous Vehicle manufacturers access to a powerful, small, super-low energy consuming chipset for autonomous driving. It is more a competition for Intel/Mobileye and Nvidia than it is either competition for or potential product for Tesla, in my understanding. QCOM has risen well - though not busting through any doors - since the Monday morning announcement: +3.9%, against the S&P's 1.0% rise. Is anyone following this more closely?

I’m not following it closely, but they have a lot of entrenched competition from Intel/Mobileye who also use a very power efficient design. I don’t see Qualcomm developing the complex AI stack software needed to compete. To me, it smacked of a typically CES vaporware announcement.

 

[StealthP3D]

I’m not following it closely, but they have a lot of entrenched competition from Intel/Mobileye who also use a very power efficient design. I don’t see Qualcomm developing the complex AI stack software needed to compete. To me, it smacked of a typically CES vaporware announcement.

Are you aware that Qualcomm has long-standing expertise in AI and some of the early AI experts working at Qualcomm labs for at least the last 15 years? And that they have a huge R&D budget for this kind of thing?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Are you aware that Qualcomm has long-standing expertise in AI and some of the early AI experts working at Qualcomm labs for at least the last 15 years? And that they have a huge R&D budget for this kind of thing?

Yes, but that's still a long way from developing the huge data sets needed for self driving, not to mention the unique challenges self driving presents. Inference chips these days are almost a dime a dozen. What unique skill set does Qualcomm bring to the table for autonomous driving?

 

[AudubonB]

I believe that Qualcomm's strategy is to provide the means by which others can develop such bases. Where it is that your comment regarding the ubiquitousness of inference chips sits in this....I do not know. I'm absolutely out of my field here.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I believe that Qualcomm's strategy is to provide the means by which others can develop such bases. Where it is that your comment regarding the ubiquitousness of inference chips sits in this....I do not know. I'm absolutely out of my field here.

Yeah, I don’t mean to be super confident in my comments. It is indeed a very complex field. There may indeed be a market for general purpose inference chips not specifically built for a particular neural net software stack. I do know other startups are also building such chips, so some VC backed companies believe there to be a market there. I was reacting to the thought that Qualcomm would build a full autonomous solution. That is unlikely to happen. But suppling chips to that market, maybe.

But as I said, they are competing against Intel/Mobileye who have a full AI stack for that particular market. The other inference chip makers are not targeting autonomous driving but instead IOT applications.

 

[StealthP3D]

Yeah, I don’t mean to be super confident in my comments. It is indeed a very complex field. There may indeed be a market for general purpose inference chips not specifically built for a particular neural net software stack. I do know other startups are also building such chips, so some VC backed companies believe there to be a market there. I was reacting to the thought that Qualcomm would build a full autonomous solution. That is unlikely to happen. But suppling chips to that market, maybe.

But as I said, they are competing against Intel/Mobileye who have a full AI stack for that particular market. The other inference chip makers are not targeting autonomous driving but instead IOT applications.

Qualcomm didn't announce a full autonomous solution - it's a low power integrated platform that car manufacturers can use to provide advanced driver assistance functions, over-the-air updates, entertainment systems, etc. I don't know what their "unique" expertise might be other than to say they are an early pioneer in AI and integrated computing platforms. They also attract top talent and have a huge R&D program that has been working on advanced automotive systems for years. They sold their wireless EV charging division a year or two ago to focus more on the platform.

 

[ggr]

Qualcomm has focused on providing hardware support (and to a lesser extent platform software, APIs, etc.) assuming and hoping that others will develop the actual applications that will develop the market. Their attempts to do the actual applications themselves has rarely born fruit. For example Qualcomm had the first third-party app store, which never competed again once Apple had one, and Android came along. (BREW if anyone cares...) They had an internal self-driving effort until about a year and a half ago, when I hired away some of the top people on the project who used to work for me. I don't know if they are still trying or not.

 

[phantasms]

have anyone looked it to EROS, it's netflix of India, absolutely killed by shorts, of course they also ****ed up by being late on payment in May, but now looks that EROS is ready to roll. Signed contracts with Apple, Microsoft and OnePlus. But i still can't find a lot of information and decide if it is a real thing or crap. Previous Q they posted profit again but missed expectation and in November new ER coming out for last Q. I have a hunch they plan to come in-line or beat. If anyone have some legit info please provide.

Uh thank you. Thank you very much. Up 100% since reading your post on this. What else do you have?

I'm new at all this and my TSLA has me incorrectly feeling like a market wizard. Is simply buying up heavily shorted stocks and waiting for the conspiracy theory nitwits to melt a good move? lol