Mostly Borrowed Ideas Deep Dives, MBI Deep Dives

MBI Deep Dives

Mostly Borrowed Ideas Deep Dives

MBI is the abbreviation for “Mostly Borrowed Ideas”. Why “Mostly Borrowed Ideas?” As a generalist, I do not have a background in any particular sector. I enjoy navigating across industries, businesses, and countries to learn, understand, and connect the dots. In any case, most ideas and innovations are incremental in nature. Very few of us are smart enough to come up with truly original or groundbreaking ideas. I am Abdullah Al-Rezwan. I was born and brought up in Bangladesh. I went to University of Dhaka for my undergrad and majored in Finance. After working three and half years in Equity Research (Sell-side) covering Financial Sector in Bangladesh, I left Bangladesh to pursue my MBA in the US. I graduated within top 10% of the class from Cornell University's two-year MBA program and worked on the buy-side following my graduation. During my time at Cornell, I won two stock pitch competitions and also became finalists in four other competitions. I thoroughly enjoyed my stint as a generalist in the US large cap team at Madison Investments and covered a wide range of companies from UnitedHealth to Amazon and Boeing before US immigration reality paused my career in investment management. As my work authorization expired, I moved to Canada in January, 2021. Then in early 2022, I was able to return to the US.

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>1P revenue grew HSD and Amazon’s revenue ex 1P increased by high-teens last quarter.</li><li>Since I continue to rate Amazon retail to be relatively overlooked driver for Amazon, let me start with margin discussions on retail.</li><li>North America’s operating margin bottomed at -2.3% 1Q’22 and has since then increased by more than 800 bps to reach 6.1% in 4Q’23, just shy of the pre-pandemic high of 6.4% in 1Q’19.</li></ul>

1P revenue grew HSD and Amazon’s revenue ex 1P increased by high-teens last quarter.Since I continue to rate Amazon retail to be relatively overlooked driver for Amazon, let me start with margin discussions on retail.North America’s operating margin bottomed at -2.3% 1Q’22 and has since then increased by more than 800 bps to reach 6.1% in 4Q’23, just shy of the pre-pandemic high of 6.4% in 1Q’19.

Research from Value Investing, Value Investing

Value Investing

Research from Value Investing

I am a value investor. "Value", as defined in Value Investing, is simply the act of buying something for less than its worth. I treat my equity investment as a loan to the business - where the priority is to get back my principal in full, rather than achieving maximum yield. I consider my equity investment as a slightly higher risk loan extended to the business with slightly more accommodative loan covenants - hence justifying a slightly higher yield. While I identify as a value investor and cover all stocks and macro topics indiscriminately, most of my research will have an ASEAN bent as that’s where I’m geographically located.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul><li>The red &amp; blue arrows highlight the apples-to-apples comparisons to be made between the respective bars (more details below)</li><li>Around this time last year , I did a portfolio performance review based on all the stocks I had written about in 2022.</li><li>This article is a repeat of that for all the stocks I had written about in 2023.</li></ul>

The red &amp; blue arrows highlight the apples-to-apples comparisons to be made between the respective bars (more details below)Around this time last year , I did a portfolio performance review based on all the stocks I had written about in 2022.This article is a repeat of that for all the stocks I had written about in 2023.

Value Investing Substack Portfolio Review | Annual Letter 2023

Fundamental Principles of the Stock Market, From 0 to 1 in the Stock Market

From 0 to 1 in the Stock Market

Fundamental Principles of the Stock Market

Fundamental principles of the stock market, earnings reviews and research. My name is Giuliano Mana, I’m 23 years old. I have a B.A Degree in Finance and I’m a Master’s candidate at Brandeis IBS. I’ve been thoroughly going over huge amounts of reading material regarding the stock market and hope to transmit some insights here.

<ul>
<li>The last twelve months were, market-wise, interesting. Multiple things have happened that contributed to changes in my thinking-process.</li>
<li>Refining thoughts and the mental mechanism I utilize to approach portfolio management should lead to success, or at least that is my hypothesis.</li>
<li>Continuous learning allows for building more solid premises. Given time, compound interest sharpens them to the point where chances of error are minimum.</li>
</ul>


The last twelve months were, market-wise, interesting. Multiple things have happened that contributed to changes in my thinking-process.
Refining thoughts and the mental mechanism I utilize to approach portfolio management should lead to success, or at least that is my hypothesis.
Continuous learning allows for building more solid premises. Given time, compound interest sharpens them to the point where chances of error are minimum.


Independent Research, US Dominant Players, Investment Talk

Investment Talk

Independent Research, US Dominant Players

Investment Talk is for readers who wish to learn about companies that are potentially outside of their own circle of research, as well as those who are longing to become part of a community of like-minded investors and learn more about investment research. I would describe myself as a long-term investor who typically takes a 3Y to 5Y outlook, before reassessing once that period matures. I follow the adage that one should research, reach a conclusion, and then verify and continue to hold so long as the thesis remains intact. My own investing style is one that seeks to find dominant players within their respective market who have shown signs of monopoly or oligopolistic behaviour, unlikely to be disrupted, in tandem with discovering market disruptors who have a high likelihood of disrupting their respective market. Equally (and weighted accordingly) I seek to discover more nuanced, misunderstood, situations with a shorter time frame.

<ul><li>Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis, fidget spinners, heelys, silly bandz, pogs, pet rocks, mood rings, cabbage patch kids…</li><li>Every generation has its share of fad products, fashion statements, and hairstyles.</li><li>But what separates a fad from a sustainable trend? Understanding the difference between the two can be challenging.</li></ul>

Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis, fidget spinners, heelys, silly bandz, pogs, pet rocks, mood rings, cabbage patch kids…Every generation has its share of fad products, fashion statements, and hairstyles.But what separates a fad from a sustainable trend? Understanding the difference between the two can be challenging.

External broker reports(aggregated public sources), CMB International

CMB International

External broker reports(aggregated public sources)

Incorporated in Hong Kong, supported by the mainland and targeting in global market, CMB International Capital Corporation Limited (“CMBI”) is an integrated financial institution providing comprehensive and professional services. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Merchants Bank ("CMB"), by leveraging on the Group’s synergy and coordination in domestic and overseas markets, as well as CMB’s strong resources and outstanding social reputation, CMBI and its subsidiaries have been actively implementing diversified business strategies and set up an overall layout of main business segments including Corporate Finance, Asset Management, Wealth Management, Global Markets and Structured Finance, etc. Adhering to the philosophy of “being clients oriented and increasing our own values by the way of creating value for clients”, CMBI endeavors to provide quality and integrated financial services to institutional, corporate and individual customers both domestic and overseas including Hong Kong IPO sponsorship and underwriting, share placement and rights issue for listed companies, financial advisors, bonds issuance services, asset management, direct investment, wealth management, equity sales and trading, etc.

<ul><li>Microsoft unveiled two major custom-designed chips for cloud computing at its Ignite developer conference on 15 Nov 2023, Maia 100 AI accelerator and Cobalt 100 CPU.</li><li>Maia 100 was specifically designed with consideration of Azure hardware. It will be mainly used for AI tasks and generative AI for maximized utilization of hardware.</li><li>It will power some of Microsoft’s largest internal AI workloads running on Azure. </li></ul><p><em>Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.</em></p>

Microsoft unveiled two major custom-designed chips for cloud computing at its Ignite developer conference on 15 Nov 2023, Maia 100 AI accelerator and Cobalt 100 CPU.Maia 100 was specifically designed with consideration of Azure hardware. It will be mainly used for AI tasks and generative AI for maximized utilization of hardware.It will power some of Microsoft’s largest internal AI workloads running on Azure. Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.

United States

Amazon.com, Inc. is an online retailer that offers a wide range of products. The Company's products include books, music, videotapes, computers, electronics, home and garden, and numerous other products.  Amazon offers personalized shopping services, Web-based credit card payment, and direct shipping to customers.

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Amazon (AMZN US)

Amazon 4Q'23 Update

North America’s operating margin bottomed at -2.3% 1Q’22 and has since then increased by more than 800 bps to reach 6.1% in 4Q’23, just shy of the...

MBI Deep Dives

Value Investing Substack Portfolio Review | Annual Letter 2023

Around this time last year , I did a portfolio performance review based on all the stocks I had written about in 2022. This article is a repeat of...

Value Investing

2023 Shareholder Letter

The last twelve months were, market-wise, interesting. Multiple things have happened that contributed to changes in my thinking-process.

From 0 to 1 in the Stock Market

Fads and Second Acts

Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis, fidget spinners, heelys, silly bandz, pogs, pet rocks, mood rings, cabbage patch kids… Every generation has its share...

Investment Talk

Technology (Hardware/Semi)

Microsoft unveiled two major custom-designed chips for cloud computing at its Ignite developer conference on 15 Nov 2023, Maia 100 AI accelerator...

CMB International

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