David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Technology

    Disruptive Innovation: WHY NOW?

    Thanks to a subscriber for this report from ARK Invest which may be of interest. Here is a section

    Beyond Meat Gains as Tim Hortons Adds Sandwiches at 4,000 Shops

    This article by Yue qi Yang for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

     

    Beyond Meat Inc. got a reprieve from two downgrades in as many days after Tim Hortons said it’s now offering faux-meat breakfast sandwiches at almost 4,000 locations across Canada.

    The plant-based meat products maker gained as much as 7.1% in early trading after the coffee-and-doughnuts chain said it added three breakfast sandwiches to the menu made with Beyond Meat sausages after testing them at select stores last month.

    The stock reversed earlier losses driven by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s decision Wednesday to cut its rating on Beyond Meat to market perform from outperform, saying shares of the company have gotten too expensive after a more than 400% rally since its May 1 initial public offering. On Tuesday, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s similar move spurred a 25% decline, Beyond Meat’s worst day since the debut.

    Last week, the company reported quarterly earnings for the first time since the IPO, fuelling optimism among investors when it said sales would exceed $210 million this year, topping analysts’ estimates. It also said earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization would break even, compared with projections it would have a loss. The results reinforce that consumer demand for alternative meat products is on the rise.

    Read entire article

    What Your Face May Tell Lenders About Whether You're Creditworthy

    This article by Zhou Wei for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    In its lending business, meanwhile, Ping An says it uses its technology to analyze the faces of loan applicants in real time, searching for “micro-expressions” that reveal their emotional and psychological state. Such expressions typically occur within fractions of seconds and are hard for people to control, and loan officers make more accurate judgments on the applicants’ credibility based on this information, according to an article posted by Ping An on its official WeChat social-media account in China last year.

    For large loans, applicants often have to answer questions in an online video meeting that typically lasts 10 to 15 minutes. Ping An records and analyzes how the applicant answers questions, and looks for signs of eye-shifting or other suspicious behavior, which would be flagged by its system.

    Ping An in January said it has made more than 500 billion yuan worth of loans with the help of its micro-expression technology. It also said the technology has helped shorten its average loan-approval times to two hours from five days.

    Read entire article

    Sunset of China's REE Dominance

    Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Hallgarten & Co which may be of interest. Here is a section:

    Shell's Floating Prelude LNG Poised to Load First Cargo

    This article by Stephen Stapczynski for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here it is full:

    Shell’s Prelude floating LNG plant offshore Australia is expected to load its first cargo on the vessel Valencia Knutsen, which is currently idled in the area, according to commodity shipment tracker Kpler.

    * The vessel arrived near Prelude on June 4 and was likely attempting to load from the facility, but it left berth range a few hours after arrival, Kpler analysts said

    ** The vessel will probably be moored alongside the Prelude facility before the end of the week: Kpler

    * NOTE: Shipment of the first LNG cargo is “imminent,” Platts reported on June 4, citing Shell’s head of integrated gas, Maarten Wetselaar

    Read entire article

    The rise and rise of private markets

    Thanks to a subscriber for this report from McKinsey which may be of interest. Here is a section:

    Dry powder: How much is too much? With competition rising and deals hard to find, GPs’ stocks of uncommitted capital, or dry powder, reached a record high of $1.8 trillion in 2017 (Exhibit 14). That was up 9 percent year on year; indeed, dry powder has grown by 10 percent on average every year since 2012. Does the industry have too much capital? Probably not, or at least not yet. If we compare dry powder to other measures, such as funds raised and AUM, “stocks” of capital available for investment have changed little over the past few years vis-à-vis the size of the industry. Dry powder as a percentage of in-year fundraising has been between 220 and 280 percent for the past six years. As a percentage of AUM, dry powder has been similarly consistent, at 30 to 34 percent. Nor are there any significant variations among asset classes, suggesting that GPs are finding adequate opportunities in every field. Furthermore, by the metric we introduced in the 2017 edition of this report, years of PE inventory on hand, dry powder still seems adequate to deal flow. If we divide dry powder by deal volume on a seven-year trailing basis, the industry seems to have cycled through its capital in a stable way for the past several years (Exhibit 15).

    Read entire article

    Google, Facebook Tumble Amid Heightened Antitrust Scrutiny

    This article by Gerrit De Vynck and David McLaughlin for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    American antitrust officials are under increasing pressure from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to step up scrutiny of technology giants, and several presidential candidates have already weighed in. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren laid out a detailed plan for breaking up the
    tech giants in March.

    European officials have already been aggressively pursuing antitrust cases against American tech firms, including Google, while so far the U.S. has been mostly hands-off.  That may be changing amid continuing criticism that lax enforcement in the U.S. has allowed tech platforms to dominate their markets. The FTC earlier this year set up a task force to examine the conduct of tech companies and their past mergers.

    President Donald Trump and many Republicans have complained that Facebook, Google and Twitter Inc. suppress conservative views.

    Google, with a sprawling empire of businesses that could feasibly be targets, is in the dark about the focus of the investigation and hopes to learn more this week, according to another person familiar with the situation.

    Read entire article

    Email of the day on cloud computing stocks

    I have a simple question.  A large number of cloud computing companies seem to show strong growth on the price charts for the last few years.  Do you think that this is a fundamentally based trend which will continue, or is it just another dot com bubble?

    I am as always addicted to your excellent research and presentation.  Watching your video is the first thing I do every morning, and I even have to divide the Friday video into three parts, otherwise I feel deprived on Mondays.

    Read entire article

    Email of the day - on cryptocurrency exchanges:

    I noticed that you did not mention Coinbase as a vehicle to use cryptocurrency; what would be the risks of opening an account with coinbase vs stockbrokers. Thank you.

    Read entire article

    Email of the day - on battery powered flight:

    I loved Lex’s tongue-in-cheek view of lithium-on batteries. A useful energy density chart that shows where lithium-ion batteries are - roughly in between lead batteries and liquid hydrogen.

    Read entire article