Tag: Stocks

Software as a service (SaaS) aka THE CLOUD is a business model in which software, centrally hosted, is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.  One force driving these companies’ growth is soaring demand for data centers to support cloud computing.

And it doesn’t matter what size company you have:

*Start-ups – an idea / viable business model can get up and running quickly with minimal capital and operating cost.

*Small to medium-sized businesses – can take advantage of the scalability in storage and networking capabilities on demand as their business grows.

*Larger business – can help increase operational efficiency, productivity and agility.

REITs are companies that own or finance some type of real estate property. During economic troubled times, Smart Money rotates into REITs because they act like bonds, meaning the stock dividends are equivalent to coupon rates, the yield paid by a fixed-income security.

The data center REIT sector is relatively new compared to other REITs. Salesforce was an early pioneer of moving their CRM services to the cloud in the early 2000s. The company’s founder, Benioff’s vision was that software should be delivered 24/7 to people over the cloud.  Most data center REITs were founded around 2000 and make up a small percentage of REITs overall.

As data becomes an integral part of everything we do, data center real estate investment trusts (REITs) have become more important. 

The data center REIT sector is relatively new compared to other REITs. Most data center REITs were founded around 2000.  This was the around the same time Salesforce migrated its services to the cloud in the early 2000s. The company’s founder, Benioff’s vision was that software should be delivered 24/7 to people over the cloud.  Now Salesforce shares the cloud pie with Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft who have huge appetites for access to data centers.  These companies are building their own data centers, but because of the demand, are turning to data center REITs to fill that void.  But it’s also financial services, insurance and retail companies that are shifting from owning and operating their own data centers to third-party data center operators.

The relentless growth of wireless data, public cloud, digital content, social media, and ecommerce continues to fuel the need for more data center space.  The beauty of data center REITs is that their growth isn’t dependent on consumer spending, population growth or unemployment like traditional REITs.  And might I add, the Trade War between the US and China has not barring on data REITs growth.  

Two companies that I want to give some shine to are QTS Realty Trust and CyrusOne.

QTS Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: QTS) is a leading provider of data center solutions across a diverse footprint spanning more than 6 million square feet of owned mega scale data center space throughout primarily North America and Europe. Through its software-defined technology platform, QTS is able to deliver secure, compliant infrastructure solutions, robust connectivity and premium customer service to leading hyperscale technology companies, enterprises, and government entities. QTS owns, operates or manages 26 data centers and supports more than 1,100 customers primarily in North America and Europe.

The chart suggests it’s not a buy yet, as price is just below the monthly supply at $55.

CyrusOne (NASDAQ: CONE) is a high-growth real estate investment trust (REIT) specializing in highly reliable enterprise-class, carrier-neutral data center properties. It’s America’s third largest data-center provider and its solutions allow customers take advantage of cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

The Company provides mission-critical data center facilities that protect and ensure the continued operation of IT infrastructure for approximately 1,000 customers, including more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies. 

In 2018, CyrusOne have the most data center properties under construction in the U.S., at six and had the most preconstruction data center development properties at 24.

The chart suggests to go long at the monthly demand at $56.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Dollar Tree, Inc. operates discount variety retail stores. It operates through two segments, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. The Dollar Tree segment offers merchandise at the fixed price of $1.00.

Dollar Tree is the largest dollar chain with over 15, 000 stores.  Dollar Tree has been successful to this point because of their perceived value.  Essentially you pay for what you get and the items are sold in a smaller unit size.  But they have done some clever things as well.  They have kept the items they sell to a minimum, so they have a high inventory turns and stores do required a whole lot footprint and they sell a ton of private label items, which helps their margins.

To compete with the likes of Walmart, they purchased Family Dollar in 2015 to expand their customer base. Dollar Tree caters to people who live in the suburbs, while Family Dollar caters to people who live in urban.   However, Family Dollar really never did their homework prior to the purchase.   Family Dollar customers have a lower income than their suburban counterparts and less likely to make impulse buys because of their budget.  That one major difference between the two customer base has hurt the earnings ever since the acquisition.

Dollar Tree finally recognized the bad business choice they made in 2015 and have since closed over 500 Family Dollar stores in 2019 and will re-brand another 1000 Family Dollar stores to Dollar Tree stores.

Dollar Tree reported earnings on Tuesday. Dollar Tree stock fell 10% on Tuesday after the company posted disappointing earnings results and gave guidance that underwhelmed Wall Street. The trade war between the US and China and the tariffs has hurt margins due to sourcing a large chunk of their merchandise from China. In addition, issues at its Family Dollar brand are pinching the company’s results. Dollar Tree posted earnings per share of $1.08, below expectations for $1.13. Its revenue of $5.75 billion narrowly beat expectations for $5.74 billion.

So where is price heading next, lets go to the charts? Price is clearly in an uptrend, but it would of been nice if prices on the monthly chart closed above the most recently high. Thus, this lowers the probability that price will make a new higher high.

However, the uptrend is an uptrend, until it not. Thus, the chart suggest to go long at the daily demand at $85.50.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Uber’s story starts more than a decade ago.  Travis Kalanick and Garret Camp were leaving a tech conference in Paris when they couldn’t get a cab. Initially, the idea was for a timeshare limo service that could be ordered via an app with Garret eventually buying the domain name UberCab.com.

Uber was born in 2009 and New York became its test market with three cars in 2010, with the official launch taking place in San Francisco in May.  Travis eventually came on board as CEO in December 2010 and with time grew to become the highest valued private startup company in the world.

Like many startups, there seems to be a culture of almost “anything goes.”  However, if those startups go grow and mature, it eventually catches up with you.  Uber was a perfect example of that.  In February of 2017, a former female Uber engineer blasted the company for its sexist culture in a 3,000-word blog post citing the culture as hostile, sexist and offensive. The post went viral and resulted in some upper managers being let go and/or resigning.  But that was just the start as an investigation, called the Holder Investigation, soon was underway.  The investigation resulted in over 40 recommendations intended to improve the culture.

Kalanick stepped down as CEO and two months later announced that Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia (EXPE), would take over.  But it was too late, Uber’s valuation declined from $70 billion to $48 billion.  Kalanick did a great job stabilizing the culture and perception of Uber in the financial markets, so in May Uber made it IPO debut with shares set to price at $44 to $50, given the company an immediate $80 or $90 billion market cap.

In 2018, Uber’s revenue reached $11.3 billion for the year, up 43% from 2017, but encountered operating losses of $3 billion.  They even expressed at one point that they might never generate a profit.

Since Uber went public, the stock has declined by near 33% due to concerns of competition and profitability.  In additional, the lockout period expiring was last week, means that insiders, including early investors and employees, are free to sell shares.  Kalanick sold 53.24 million shares worth roughly $1.46 billion. 

So is all the bad news now priced into the stock price, well some folks on Wall Street think so?

Uber Technologies, Inc. (UBER) shares opened sharply higher during Friday’s session before giving up some ground by mid-day. The move came after Stifel upgraded the stock from Hold to Buy with a price target of $34.00 per share.

Analyst Scott Devitt believes that Uber is turning a corner, with signs of sustainable improvements in the fundamentals. He adds that the current valuation offers a more reasonable entry point for interested investors.

Despite these concerns, Barclays analyst Ross Sandler said that Uber was one major announcement away from a positive narrative change heading into the new year.

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Now maybe Ube is two major announcements away from a positive narrative change.  Today, London stripped Uber of its license to operate in the city, citing the company wasn’t doing enough to keep passengers safe.  London is Uber’s largest city in Europe with Europe accounting for about 10% of the company’s total revenue.

Personally, I wouldn’t have bite on the upgrade, as I thought it was premature based on what I was seeing on the charts as the chart suggests Uber isn’t a buy until the weekly demand at $34 is breached.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

The internet was originally built to hold and share data, making the transfer of data timely and seamless. The internet has evolved over time, and today the internet is allowing for a timely and seamless transfer of goods.

The rise of ecommerce outlets has made it harder for traditional retailers to attract customers to their stores and there is no bigger culprit than Amazon. So what did Kohl’s do, the got in bed with the enemy a year ago and partnered with Amazon. Kohl’s now accepts Amazon returns and has Amazon shops in their stores where they sell Amazon products such as the Echo smart speakers.

The partnership simplifying the returns process for Amazon and showcasing Echo devices and other Alexa-compatible hardware and in return brings in addition foot traffic into the Kohl’s stores. Case in point, the partnership is even gaining traction with millennials, who otherwise would have ignored Kohl’s.

Kohl has even teamed up with Weight Watchers, for an in-store studio and Healthy Kitchen products at some locations.  In addition, in an effort to drive more foot traffic to its stores, Kohl’s is partnering with Planet Fitness.

Retailers closed a record 100 million square feet of store space in 2017, another 155 million square feet, according to estimates by the commercial real-estate firm CoStar Group.  This year more than 9,000 stores are expected to close in 2019.  From Sears, Kmart, Party City, Walgreens, Barneys, Family Dollar, Chico’s and others. Payless has said it plans to close all of its 2,500 stores in what could be the largest retail liquidation in history.

So is Kohl’s really just holding on for dear life?

Department store chain Kohl’s remained confident its Amazon partnership would boost sales despite cutting its full-year guidance ahead of the holiday season.

The retailer’s stock KSS, -19.49% plunged more than 17% on Tuesday after missing third-quarter sales estimates and slashing its annual earnings forecast.

The company had hoped its expanded tie-up with the e-commerce company would have a positive impact on its second-half performance. However, Kohl’s slashed its full-year earnings guidance after the third quarter—the first full quarter since the nationwide rollout of the Amazon Returns program. The company said it now expected adjusted earnings per share of $4.75 to $4.95, down from previous guidance of $5.15 to $5.45; the FactSet consensus had been $5.19. Same-store sales in the third quarter rose 0.4%, below FactSet estimates of 0.9% growth.

Despite the earnings miss, Kohl’s Chief Executive Michelle Gass said the company had “momentum” going into the holiday season, which she was confident would be strong because of the Amazon partnership and investments in new brands and products.

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Kohl’s stock price fell the most in three years on the earning’s announcement. So is there more pain in store, yes as the chart suggests price is heading down to the monthly demand at $35?

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

The Four Horsemen of
Cannabis, Canopy Growth, Tilray, Cronos, and Aurora Cannabis announced earnings
this past week.  The end result was all
four companies announced dismal results. What was once one of the hottest
sectors a year ago, has now burned up in the smoke.   Valuation
just got way ahead of the reality. At one point, Tilray was more valuable than
50% of the companies on the S&P 500…that’s just crazy.

One of the biggest reasons is a supply shortage, as a lot of Canadian growers waited too long to expand their capacity. There’s also the issue of cultivation and processing application backlogs, as well as high tax rates in the U.S. and a significant delay in the launch of the derivatives market (derivatives are products like edibles, vape pods, and infused beverages. Plus, there’s the regulatory and accounting issues that have left investors cold.

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Aurora Cannabis Inc. produces and distributes medical cannabis products in Canada and internationally. The company has one of the broadest international footprints, with operations in 24 countries and production capacity that may exceed 700,000 kilograms per year at peak.  But this past Friday, Aurora shares fall the most in five years when they announced disappointing numbers and said they were cancelling or delaying plans for multiple further facilities.  Nine analysts cut their price targets on the stock after the earnings announcement, with the lowest price target being $2.80.   

What would help the industry
out a lot is making cannabis legal on the federal level in the US.  If and when this happens, you will see financial
institutions flood the industry with capital. 
At the moment most companies in the industry are cash strapped.  It’s why Aurora converted C$155 million in
debt into shares as it seeks to conserve cash. 
But many private companies aren’t in the same position Aurora is in.  For example, many companies had to resort to
buying their storefronts because landlords weren’t willing to rent them the
space. So with banks not giving these companies the time and day, with the
equity markets drying up, these companies are being forced to sell off their
assets…their real estate.

What would also help get
more capital into the industry is the passing of the SAFE Banking Act.

Sept. 25, 2019, the House of Representatives passed the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, commonly known as the SAFE Banking Act. The SAFE Banking Act, if made into law, would provide protection from federal interference for financial institutions that choose to provide financial services to CRLBs. Specifically, the SAFE Banking Act would provide a safe harbor for banks by mitigating the legal risks associated with providing banking services to state-legalized cannabis businesses.

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Aurora’s future remains bright nevertheless.  In December when President Trump signed the Farm Bill into law to legalize the production and sale of hemp and cannabidiol (CBD) derived from the hemp plant.  Aurora will be a significant player in the U.S. as it make inroads into the U.S. hemp CBD market.  

Also, Aurora will be the
top cannabis company in the fast-growing European cannabis market. Aurora
already ranks as the leader in Germany, the most important European medical
cannabis market.  In addition, it’s acquisition
of Agropro, the largest organic hemp producer in Europe, and Borelas, another
European hemp producer and processor, sets the company up for success over the
next ten years.

 Thus, at these depressed prices, if Aurora is priced at fair value, the market suggest to go long at the monthly demand at $2.00.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Dillard’s, Inc. operates retail department stores primarily in the Southeastern, Southwestern, and Midwestern areas of the United States. The company’s stores offer a selection of merchandise, including fashion apparel for women, men, and children; accessories; cosmetics; home furnishings; and other consumer goods.

Can’t say I ever heard of Dillard as I live in the Northeast.  Either way, Dillard can’t hide…not from me, but from Amazon. The rise of ecommerce outlets has made it harder for traditional retailers to attract customers to their stores and there is no bigger culprit than Amazon.

The Amazon effect is the ongoing evolution and disruption of the retail market. Retailers closed over 102 million square feet of store space in 2017 and 2018 and in 2019, over 8,000 stores will close their doors.

However, Dillard got a victory today for retailers such as Macy’s, J.C Penny and Nordstrom. 

 Dillard’s Inc. DDS, +0.17% stock soared 17% in Thursday trading after it reported a surprise profit, and lifted other department store stocks with it. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. JCP, +0.90% shares jumped 5%, Macy’s Inc. M, +1.06% shares climbed nearly 3%, and Nordstrom Inc. JWN, +0.05% stock was up almost 2% on Thursday. Many department stores haven’t reported their latest quarterly earnings, heading into a holiday season with both bullish forecasts for sales but concerns about the shortened shopping period. Dillard’s stock has gained 32% for the year to date,

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Dillard is really bucking the trend.  I had no idea Dillard was up 32% this year.  I’m actually licking my chops…could this be a shorting opportunity…wow…this was a shorting opportunity.  The big picture shows a monthly supply zone at $104,

But my eyes are draw to the wicks near $85.  In the last four years, price has only been able to close above $85 once on the monthly chart.

Taking things down to a daily chart, price pierced the upper Bollinger Bands.   Bollinger Bands are a type of volatility indicator developed by John Bollinger. Bollinger Bands are lines plotted at a standard deviation level, typically two SD above and below a simple moving average of the price.  In sideway markets, meaning markets that aren’t trending, price will typically bounce off of one band to the other.

In the case of Dillard, price pierced the upper band and has since pulled back which presented a great opportunity for a short.

Personally I think price is going to fill the gap, but it doesn’t matter any longer as the trade set-up came and went.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Microsoft licenses its operating systems to manufacturers of computers back in the day. Today, the name Microsoft is synonymous with PCs and laptops. Just like Microsoft is synonymous with PCs and laptops, Roku is synonymous with smart TVs.

Roku was founded in 2002 is taking advantage of the cord cutting trend. According to Roku’s most recent shareholders’ letter, “roughly 50% of U.S. cord cutters are Roku customers.

Roku offers an easy way to access all the top streaming services. Roku estimates that more than a third of all smart TVs sold in the U.S. have Roku’s operating system built in. The list right now includes TCL, Insignia, Sharp, Hisense, Hitachi, RCA and Philips. Roku’s free channel has also secured a partnership with Samsung.

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Roku is well-positioned for the streaming war. As the streaming war rages between Netflix NFLX, Amazon AMZN, Disney DIS and others and more people spend more time streaming their favorite shows on more services, Roku makes more money. So no matter which streaming service comes out on top, Roku should benefit.

It’s the reason why Roku was up as much as 400% this year at one point. In just under a year, Roku went from a small/mid cap stock to a large-cap. The firm’s sales growth has been accelerating with year-over-year growth of more than 50% for the past 3 quarters. In addition, Roku just reported its 8th straight top and bottom-line earnings beat. However, on the news the stock sold off. Wall Street will tell you their valuation got to rich, but a month ago I talked about where the chart suggested the Sellers were.

Is Roku’s Reign Over???

Although I thought the weekly demand would have been a better buy, price reacted to the monthly demand at $95. Thus, the chart suggests price will rise to the daily supply at $148.

It’s not a coincident, price sold off at the daily supply at $148, the news just served as a catalysts. Just another example of why the Markets are not random.

So where does Roku go from here?

Highlighting how well the company is monetizing its platform, Roku’s average revenue per user over the trailing 12 months is 40% higher than Netflix’s most expensive streaming plan. What’s particularly surprising, however, is that current trends indicate there’s still plenty of upside left for this metric to move even higher.

In Roku’s third-quarter update, management said its ARPU was $22.58. With 32.3 million active accounts (1.7 million of which were added in Q3 alone), this robust ARPU has helped Roku deliver $633 million in trailing-12-month platform revenue.

While Roku does benefit from subscriptions to third-party streaming services on its platform, advertising is the company’s most important growth driver. In fact, monetized ad inventory on its platform more than doubled year over year in Q3 — a trend that has been consistent with recent quarters.

Looking ahead, Roku believes this is just the beginning when it comes to advertising spending on its platform. Only 3% of TV advertising budgets are currently spent on connected TV, yet connected TV accounts for 29% of U.S. viewing, Roku’s general manager of platform business, Scott Rosenberg, noted in Roku’s third-quarter earnings call, citing research firm Magna Global.

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Thus, the chart suggests to go long at the daily demand at $107 and ride price back to the daily supply at $148.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about Santander Consumer,

Santander Consumer Is Setting Up For A Short Position

Santander Consumer is one of the largest subprime auto lenders in the market. Delinquencies for auto loans in general, including both prime and subprime, have reached their highest levels this year since 2011.

Santander Consumer had $26.3 billion of subprime auto loans as of June 30 that it either owned, or bundled into bonds, According to a report from S&P Global Ratings, Santander Consumer has more than $25 billion in subprime auto loans which is almost 50% of the company’s total managed loans.

Today, I want to introduce another auto lender, Credit Acceptance Corporation

Credit Acceptance Corporation provides financing programs, and related products and services to independent and franchised automobile dealers in the United States. The company advances money to dealers in exchange for the right to service the underlying consumer loans; and buys the consumer loans from the dealers and keeps various amounts collected from the consumers.

Don Foss is known as the pioneer of the subprime auto loan market.  Back in the days, General Motors and Ford would only lend money to folks with good credit.  So Don started selling cars on credit to people with shaky finances.  Don was charging customers crazy high interest rates and could because nobody else was issuing loans to this particular population with bad credit. So in 1972, Foss founded Credit Acceptance (CACC) to handle financing and debt collection for his used car business. Today, CACC is a major player in the U.S. subprime auto loan market and its market cap is a little under $8 billion.

Credit Acceptance Corporation’s CACC third-quarter 2019 earnings of $8.73 per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $9.13. However, the bottom line was up 12.6% year over year. 

Provision for credit losses increased 37.9% from the year-ago quarter to $19.3 million. Moreover, allowance for credit losses at the end of the third quarter was $509.1 million, up from $461.9 million as of Dec 31, 2018.

Credit Acceptance is well poised for growth in revenues, given the continued rise in consumer loans. However, persistently increasing expenses and deteriorating asset quality are near-term concerns.

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So as the economy slows, companies hire less and layoff more, customers’ confidence decline, the more sub-prime auto loans default.  And when this chain reaction fully materializes, CACC’s stock will crash. 

At the moment, there is a nice band of support/resistance at the $450 level.

However, because this band of support/resistance was breached last month, the chart suggests to short price at the weekly supply at $460.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.