Log in

Tag: Stocks

Survey says consumers avoid electric cars due to three myths: range, price, charging (electrek)

August 26, 2019 (updated August 26, 2019) Published by

Survey says consumers avoid electric cars due to three myths: range, price, charging (electrek)

  • According to a new survey by Autolist, the top reasons for not buying an EV were range, price, and charging, with c. 40% of respondents concerned about these issues.
  • The author makes the argument that these concerns are outdated, as EV prices are already below US$30k (after fuel cost advantage), provide a range of ~250miles, and the are thousands of charging points every where in the US.
  • One of the positive insights from the survey is that the majority of consumers (55%) now said they would use an EV as their primary vehicle rather than as a secondary vehicle (which was previously the top answer).

Analysis and Comments

  • This article fits in well with the investor’s view as to the process by which EV uptake will occur
  • The short version is that, as the article highlights, the key issue around EV adoption will be familiarity. For most consumers, current EVs are perfectly suitable for day to day use. Most of us just don’t drive far enough to need to recharge more than once a day (as with the person in this story). So the key is getting people to try one.
  • This does not understate the charging infrastructure challenge; yes, there is a lot more that needs to be done to roll out charging stations, especially fast chargers. But this is a solvable problem.
  • As with similar innovations, the adoption curve starts slowly and then rapidly accelerates – we expect to hit this inflection sometime in the mid 2020s. Tailwinds to this include tougher emission standards & city centre driving restrictions & potential headwinds include cutting of subsidies and a lack of affordable model choice.

The article also makes an important point:

  • Auto makers don’t need to keep making the range further & further, if the cost is more expensive batteries & hence a very expensive EV. The alternative is cheaper shorter range EVs, possibly with a lease package that includes the occasional use of a petrol car for longer trips

Baby boomers are keeping booze Britain afloat – but the young are drinking less

August 24, 2019 Published by

Baby
boomers are keeping booze Britain afloat – but the young are drinking less (The
Conversation)

  • While drinking rates are declining globally, particularly among young people, in the UK, baby boomers (aged 55-64) remain the most likely to drink heavily and are the least likely to abstain from drinking alcohol.
  • The universal decline may therefore be more of a polarisation around drinking, with the decline of overall consumption levels potentially masking on-going heavy drinking among some young people and particularly older ones.
  • In the UK, the 4% of the population who drink the most heavily are responsible for c. 30% of all alcohol purchases, and alcohol-related deaths as well as hospital admissions are growing significantly in recent years.

Analysis and Comments

  • It is estimated that over 20% of the population does not drink at all, and its c. 30% for people under 24 (the data is not very precise). It is also estimated that c. 4% of the population drink around 30% of the alcohol consumed and that these consumers make up c.25% of industry profits. In addition, and perhaps more worryingly, deaths related to alcohol misuse are the highest in a decade, with related hospital admissions up 67%.
  • The implications are fairly stark for Beverages companies – in Western markets we should expect a continuing shift away from consumption of mass market beer, toward premium beer, wine & spirits. This is not necessarily bad news for drinks companies, they have been repositioning themselves for this shift for some time. Plus emerging markets consumption is still rising and the trend toward premium (i.e. more profitable) drinks continues.

Nearly 1 in 4 millennials hasn’t had a physical in 5 years

August 22, 2019 Published by

Nearly
1 in 4 millennials hasn’t had a physical in 5 years, survey says (Mobi Health
News)

  • According to a new survey by Harmony Healthcare IT, millennials prefer getting medical advice online to going to their doctor; 76% of the respondents said they used specialized websites like WebMD or news articles.
  • It highlights the current transformation of the healthcare sector. Millennials, who will outnumber baby boomers by 20m in 2030, are favouring retail clinics and telehealth for healthcare treatment. The online presence of traditional providers is also important: 65% said they only see doctors who can be found online, with 48% saying they would prefer to have a virtual visit with a doctor than an in-person appointment.
  • One of the main argument is cost: WebMD for instance, the first choice website for those surveyed, is free, which makes it the economically more sensible option, as only 35% of those surveyed set aside savings for medical emergencies, with 51% of those saving less than US$100 per month.

Analysis and Comments

  • The first thing that is probably important to note about this survey is that the respondents are American (which explains the emphasis on cost advantages).
  • However, a much larger study conducted by Accenture in February looked at four times as many consumers from all around the world and came to similar conclusions: there is a shift away from traditional care offerings, towards online alternatives.
  • Importantly, this shift was not only found among members of the youngest generations (Millennials and Gen Z), but also Generation X (the one after the Boomers).

US patients struggle to obtain Eli Lilly’s half-price insulin

August 20, 2019 Published by

US
patients struggle to obtain Eli Lilly’s half-price insulin (FT)

  • According to recent data from GoodRX, an app tracking drug prices, only 3% of insurance claims for Eli Lilly’s insulin were for the half-price version that the company revealed shortly before being questioned by Congress on soaring insulin prices.
  • According to the article, many pharmacists do not know that a cheaper version is available or it cannot be accessed because it wasn’t added to individual patient’s list of drugs that are covered.
  • The company said it was aggressively working to increase awareness as well as access to the cheaper diabetes drug.

Analysis and Comments

  • Best Healthcare analysts expect a strong downward pricing pressure and slowing volume growth for the previous classes of drugs such as DPP4 and basal insulins.
  • This will likely result in a slowdown in the sales growth for the global pharmaceutical market. We project the global diabetes pharma market to grow at only 3% CAGR to reach $46bn by 2025.
  • While the overall diabetes pharma market is set to slow, GLP1 and SGLT4 are likely to experience rapid growth.

Eli Lilly’s Share Price (USD)

Electric Unicorn: Bus Maker Proterra May Hit $1 Billion Valuation With New Funding Round

August 19, 2019 Published by

Electric
Unicorn: Bus Maker Proterra May Hit $1 Billion Valuation With New Funding Round
(Forbes)

  • US-based electric bus maker Proterra, which may be looking to go public, is planning another fundraising round that is likely to push the company to a unicorn-class valuation of US$1bn.
  • The company supplies transit buses to cities across the US and employs a number of former Tesla engineers and executives.
  • The private equity sale (which the company registered on August 2nd) could raise up to US$75m in support of the company’s planned expansion beyond transit buses and into a new business unit aimed at selling EV components such as its batteries and motors.

Analysis and Comments

  • The bus sector is the easiest to electrify because of the predetermined nature of the driving routes which makes it easier and less costly to set up charging points. This explains why 60% of the bus fleet in Chinese cities is already electric.  
  • The bus sector contributes 10% to road related emissions despite being less than 1% in terms of the vehicle fleet. Electrification of bus fleets in Europe and the US will likely speed up over the next 5 years.
  • Chinese companies such as BYD will likely capture the bulk of the international electric bus market, especially short range city buses (also called transit buses). This will be because of their clear cost advantage versus western OEMs. Companies like Proterra are hence focussing on higher value longer range electric buses.      

Twitter Data Shows Major Increase in Gaming Engagement on Platform

August 16, 2019 Published by

Twitter
Data Shows Major Increase in Gaming Engagement on Platform (HollywoodReporter)

  • According to Twitter, more than 500m gaming-related tweets were sent in H1 2019, a 20% increase yoy. In 2018, gaming topics topped 1bn tweets for the first time.
  • While the US seems to be tweeting the most about gaming, Japan hastaken the top spot in the past year as the topic is becoming more global.
  • Following last week’s mass shootings and President Trump’s condemning remarks about video games, several supportive hashtags such as #VideoGamesAreNottoBlame and #GamersAreGood started trending on the platform.

Analysis and Comments

  • Given the recent series of high-profile gaming-related news (the political debate, but also a number of milestones and records achieved across esports events such as the Fortnite and Dota 2 World Championships), the uptick in tweets does not seem surprising.
  • In a way, it is yet another sign that playing video gaming and watching esports is becoming more socially accepted/”mainstream”.
  • With the steady increase in esports viewership numbers and the continued strong demand for video games, we expect this trend to continue.
  • On a side note, Chinese video gaming giant Tencent and Chinese livestreaming platform Huya reported Q2 figures this week, both showing continued growth in mobile revenues and mobile users, respectively.

HUYA’s Share Price (USD)

Where Is The Dax Headed Next??? – Part 2

August 14, 2019 Published by

I talked about the DAX most recently, three weeks ago,

Where Is The Dax Headed Next???

The DAX is a blue chip stock market index consisting of the 30 major German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.  And Germany, the biggest economy in Europe is stalling.   Germany is an export country and so they have been hit hard by the trade tariff between China and the US and the all the uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

You put all these issues in a pot and the finish product is an inevitable recession.  An inevitable recession was further supported by the recent ZEW Survey.  ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment is a leading indicator for the German economy. The recent ZEW Survey showed sentiment among investors fell to -44.1 from -24.5 in July, its lowest since Dec. 2011.

Germany Is Flirting With Recession After Investor Confidence Falls

Source

Since price broke the 12200 level and formed a “M” pattern, also known as a reversal pattern,

I’m not sure if price will get back to the 12220 level for a short,

so lets see if price to push to the downside and pull back for a short.

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.

Lyft Thinks They Are Slick, Short The Stock Now

August 13, 2019 Published by

Back in late March Lyft made their debut on the stock exchanged and opened at $72 per share. Lyft is now down 18% since its IPO.  Despite the positive earnings last week, which included raising their full-year outlook, Lyft has further downside.  There have been countless questions and discussions surrounding Lyft’s business model.

 In fiscal 2019, Lyft expects to generate revenue of at least $3.47 billion with an adjusted EBITDA loss of $850 million to $875 million. In 2018, Lyft’s EBITDA’s loss was around $850 million.  Thus, Lyft may never make a profit, nor do they have a clear path to profitability.

But here is why I think Lyft is a short now.  During their earnings announcement last week, where they reported raised their full-year outlook, Lyft said they are cutting down their lock-out period from late Sept. to Aug 19th.

“The lock-up period is scheduled to end on September 24, 2019, which falls within the Company’s quarterly blackout period that commences at the end of the day on August 31, 2019,” the company said in the filing. “Therefore, in accordance with the lock-up agreements with the underwriters, the lock-up period will end at the open of trading on August 19, 2019, which is ten trading days prior to the commencement of the Company’s quarterly blackout period. The Company will also release the market standoff agreements when the lock-up period expires.”

Lyft expects that about 257.6 million shares of Class A common stock may become eligible for sale in the public market beginning August 19. This includes about 12.8 million of Class B shares of common stock converted into Class A stock.

Newly public companies are typically subject to a lock-up period preventing insiders including founders, directors and other employees from selling their shares for a designated period of time. The restriction is intended in large part to prevent these investors from injecting large numbers of shares into the market, which could send stock prices lower by quickly increasing supply.

Source

So there are about 274 million shares outstanding.  The founders, institutions that bought a stake in the company before going public want to cash out.  We are talking about potentially diluting the float (float is the number of shares actually available for trading) by almost 100%.

August 19th simply becomes a supply and demand issues, very similar to the supply and demand issues on Steem.  It’s way too expensive to short the stock by borrowing shares due to the borrowing rates, which was once 100%.  Thus, the best way to short Lyft is through options.  But give yourself so time for the trade to work.  The leap options, January 2012 options are too illiquid.  But the January 2020 put options gives one plenty of time for the trade to work, which also includes time for an additional two earnings report (which may not meet expectations).

So if you think Lyft will at least test the lows within the next five months,

Consider buying some January 2020 put options with a strike price at $50, but first ensure its liquid enough.

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.

♻️ 3 Recent Examples of Corporates Which are Working to Counter Climate Risks ♻️

August 13, 2019 Published by

Big Money Starts to Dump Stocks That Pose Climate Risks (Bloomberg)

Image associée
  • As climate change related risks are becoming more pronounced, major investment firms have been increasingly pushing companies to address these risks and their role in exacerbating them.
  • This year, almost every major public oil company faced at least one shareholder resolution involving climate change, with proposals winning record support.
  • While most asset managers prefer engagement to divestment, frustration over fruitless discussion and resolutions has also led to a growing divestment campaign.
  • Earlier this year, Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) reduced its stake in oil giant Exxon by US$300m, using its remaining stake to vote against the reappointment Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods.

Analysis and Comments

  • The whole debate around divestment vs engagement is a potentially divisive one – not so much among asset managers but in discussions with asset owners and particularly retail investors.
  • Over the last few years, it has been interesting to watch the shift in focus, as the engagers have increasingly honed in on the stranded asset risk across a whole range of industries, which has real and tangible implications for value.

Google pledges carbon-neutral shipping, recycled plastic for all devices (Reuters)

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "google devices"
  • Google announced beginning of the week that it would neutralize carbon emissions from delivering consumer hardware by 2020, and include recycled plastics in each of its products by 2022.
  • According to Anna Meegan, the company’s head of sustainability for its devices and services unit, the company’s transport-related carbon emissions per unit fell 40% in 2018 as it increased the use of ships rather than planes in transport.
  • Currently three out of nine products for which the company discloses details online contain recycled plastic (ranging from 20-42%) – which trails behind hardware rival Apple’s sustainability efforts.  

Analysis and Comments

  • The trend may be slow, but for those companies that sell high profile products such as Apple & Google, the pressure to show their green credentials appears to be growing.
  • It is not clear how Google will fully “neutralise carbon emissions from delivery” – initially it looks as if at least part of the solution will be via carbon credits (which will gradually become more & more expensive to buy).
  • Hence longer term, this increase in carbon crédits price could be providing an incentive for the transport sector to accelerate its own shift to low carbon.

Diageo spends £180m on greener African operations (FT)

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "diageo"
  • British spirits maker Diageo is investing £180m into green energy and water recovery solutions such as biomass boilers, solar installations and water recycling systems at 11 of its breweries across Africa.
  • The investment is the company’s largest environmental investment in a decade, and will include £50m in upfront capital for solar, water treatment and biomass equipment, as well as £130m in long-term supply and maintenance contracts.
  • The company’s ultimate goal is to become 100% green and it plans to half its water usage and GHG emissions by 2020 as part of a group-wide commitment. It is also increasing its focus on sourcing locally in, with 78% of agricultural materials used in its 12 breweries across Africa currently sourced from local farmers.

Analysis and Comments

  • Africa contributes c. 13% of Diageo’s global turnover and about half of the company’s beer sales, and a minimum of 20 of the company’s African production facilities are in so-called “water-stressed locations”.
  • Unsurprisingly, water is an essential ingredient in all of Diageo’s brands (90%+ of beer and 60% of spirits) and the company has thus far been able to achieve a c.44% improvement in water efficiency between 2009 and 2018.
  • According to new data from WRI’s Aqueduct tools, 17 countries (including Africa) – home to one quarter of the world’s population – face extremely high levels of baseline water stress, as water withdrawals globally have more than doubled since the 1960s.
  • Of the 17 most water-stressed countries,12 are in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where growing demand and climate change are pushing already constrained countries even further into extreme stress.
  • According to the World Bank, this region has the greatest expected economic losses from climate-related water scarcity (c. 6-14% of GDP by 2050), stressing the importance of pursuing SDG 6 – ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Résultat de recherche d'images pour "diageo solar panel"

Rocket League is dropping lootboxes

August 12, 2019 Published by

Rocket
League is dropping lootboxes (VentureBeat)

  • Rocket League, a highly successful live-service video game (PC/console) debuted in 2015 is still very popular, ranking in the top 10 most played games on gaming distribution platform Steam.
  • Its developer, Psyonix, was recently acquired by Epic Games and is now dropping the lootbox-style crate system it used to generate revenues from its player base.
  • Psyonix has already shifted the main focus of its monetisation strategy over to premium progression passes (so-called Battle Passes), which have been very lucrative for Epic Games.

Analysis and Comments

  • Lootboxes and micro transactions have long been popular monetisation techniques in mobile games, but it is only more recently that the big-budget games from AAA studios have been introducing them as well.
  • The main reason we are highlighting this story is because it showcases the subsequent shift away from monetisation techniques based on randomized item rewards (in premium games), as they have received a lot of attention and criticism in the near past – and come with a looming regularity overhang.
  • Battle Passes, on the other hand, are a tried and proven method to generate revenue from a game’s player base (and importantly not hated by gamers, unlike the “surprise mechanics” of lootboxes).
  • There are many successful examples of companies using this technique (including Epic Games & Riot), with perhaps one of the best ones being Valve’s annual Battle Pass sale for the esports World Championship of its game Dota 2: the game’s prize pool is almost entirely crowdfunded via the Battle Passes, and while only 25% of the in-game sales actually go towards the prize pool, the total prize pool currently amounts to more than US$32m, with 18 days left until the crowdfunding ends.
  • Notably, the Battle Pass-funded prize pool has consistently broken its own record every year, with this year’s officially being the largest single-event prize pool in esports history.

Tencent’s Share price (majority shareholder of EPIC Games)

September 2026
S M T W T F S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  

Latest Media