European Event-Driven Analyst

Jesus Rodriguez Aguilar

Event-Driven

<ul>
<li>Since mid-November, spreads have generally widened across our European liquid universe of ordinary and preferred shares (9 have tightened, 10 widened).</li>
<li>Recommended trades long preferred / short ordinary shares: Media-for-Europe, Sixt, Volkswagen (still the most interesting situation).</li>
<li>Recommended trades long ordinary / short preferred shares: Fuchs, Henkel, SSAB Svenska Stal.</li>
</ul>


Since mid-November, spreads have generally widened across our European liquid universe of ordinary and preferred shares (9 have tightened, 10 widened).
Recommended trades long preferred / short ordinary shares: Media-for-Europe, Sixt, Volkswagen (still the most interesting situation).
Recommended trades long ordinary / short preferred shares: Fuchs, Henkel, SSAB Svenska Stal.


Liquid Universe of European Ordinary and Preferred Shares: December‘23 Report

<ul>
<li>Spreads have generally tightened across our liquid universe, 450 bps in the case of Volkswagen.</li>
<li>Recommendations Long ords / short prefs: Fuchs Petrolub, Henkel, Handelsbanken, Investor AB.</li>
<li>Recommendations Long prefs / short ords: BMW, Roche, Schroders, Telecom Italia, Volkswagen.</li>
</ul>


Spreads have generally tightened across our liquid universe, 450 bps in the case of Volkswagen.
Recommendations Long ords / short prefs: Fuchs Petrolub, Henkel, Handelsbanken, Investor AB.
Recommendations Long prefs / short ords: BMW, Roche, Schroders, Telecom Italia, Volkswagen.


Liquid Universe of European Ordinary and Preferred Shares: January '22 Report

<ul>
<li>Since mid-March, spreads have generally widened across our European liquid universe of ordinary and preferred shares (5 have tightened, 12 widened, 2 remained at same level).</li>
<li>Views are unchanged. Recommended trades long preferred / short ordinary shares: Danieli, Grifols, Media-for-Europe, Sixt, Volkswagen.</li>
<li>Recommended trades long ordinary / short preferred shares: Fuchs, Henkel, SSAB Svenska Stal, Roche.</li>
</ul>


Since mid-March, spreads have generally widened across our European liquid universe of ordinary and preferred shares (5 have tightened, 12 widened, 2 remained at same level).
Views are unchanged. Recommended trades long preferred / short ordinary shares: Danieli, Grifols, Media-for-Europe, Sixt, Volkswagen.
Recommended trades long ordinary / short preferred shares: Fuchs, Henkel, SSAB Svenska Stal, Roche.


Liquid Universe of European Ordinary and Preferred Shares: April‘24 Report

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Autonomous Driving represents the perfect fusion of our love affair with automobiles and our fascination with artificial intelligence. It has been part of our collective imagination for decades, first epitomized at the 1939 New York World Fair Futurama exhibit which posited an automated highway system (AHS), sponsored by General Motors. Research on AHS conducted at The Ohio State University led to the development of the world's first partially autonomous vehicle in 1962. Fast forward half a century and the goal of achieving autonomous driving is firmly fixed in the glare of our automobile headlights. Leading automakers, as well as technology companies, are promising autonomous or at least highly autonomous automobiles within the next three years. At the forefront, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/11369" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:11369:1">Alphabet Inc Cl C (GOOG US)</a> represented by its automotive spin-off Waymo, is in the process of launching the world's first driverless taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona. <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/18811" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:18811:1">General Motors Co (GM US)</a>, arguably the closest to Waymo in technology terms, has announced similar plans to launch an autonomous ride-sharing service in 2019.Not all is rosy in the autonomous driving garden, however. The sector has been plagued by high-profile defections of key staff leaving to either create their own startups or join competitors. These moves have led to equally high-profile and in some cases, embarrassing, law-suits. Other companies rush to hire talented artificial intelligence engineers has decimated the research ranks of leading universities.The safety and reliability of autonomous driving technology on our streets today has also been thrown into doubt in recent times. Just two days ago, on March 18'th, the first fatal accident involving an autonomous vehicle occurred in Phoenix Arizona, details <a href="https://electrek.co/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-prototyp-fatal-crash-police/" target="_blank">here</a>. That vehicle was a Volvo XC90 and was part of <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/430" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:430:1">Uber Technologies Inc</a> self-driving test fleet in the city. According to initial reports, the vehicle was operating in autonomous mode and had a safety driver on board. While we need to await the outcome of this particular investigation, previous incidents involving other autonomous vehicles highlight some astonishing shortcomings of the technology being used on our streets today. Indeed, there are now serious questions about the viability of so-called Level 3 autonomous driving in so far as they rely on emergency intervention by a driver highly likely to have been distracted by something more exciting than monitoring an automobile driving by itself. Autonomous driving is a subject far too broad to be covered in a single Insight. Consider this a primer where we begin by examining the origins of autonomous driving, tracing its roots back to 1960s which, by no coincidence, was also the starting point for much of the research on modern-day artificial intelligence. We look at the specific factors which combined to propel autonomous driving from the AI laboratories of prestigious universities to the drawing boards of multinationals around the globe. We review the framework for the different levels of autonomous driving and highlight the fact that most auto OEM's choose to largely ignore them. We then examine in detail the aforementioned issues with Level 3 autonomous driving and reveal that the technology used in the Volvo XC90, the vehicle involved in the recent fatal accident in Phoenix, specifically warns in its user manual that it should not be used for city driving and that it cannot detect pedestrians, cyclists etc. Recognizing the seminal role that <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/11369" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:11369:1">Alphabet Inc Cl C (GOOG US)</a> has played in advancing the technology, we provide an in-depth review of their self-driving initiative from its inception as a secretive Google X project to its current day incarnation as Waymo. By way of contrast, we examine the autonomous driving ambitions of one of the world's leading auto OEMs, General Motors, and provide a detailed review of their progress to date. Finally, we address the question on everybody's mind when it comes to autonomous driving - are we there yet?

Autonomous Driving represents the perfect fusion of our love affair with automobiles and our fascination with artificial intelligence. It has been part of our collective imagination for decades, first epitomized at the 1939 New York World Fair Futurama exhibit which posited an automated highway system (AHS), sponsored by General Motors. Research on AHS conducted at The Ohio State University led to the development of the world's first partially autonomous vehicle in 1962. Fast forward half a century and the goal of achieving autonomous driving is firmly fixed in the glare of our automobile headlights. Leading automakers, as well as technology companies, are promising autonomous or at least highly autonomous automobiles within the next three years. At the forefront, Alphabet Inc Cl C (GOOG US) represented by its automotive spin-off Waymo, is in the process of launching the world's first driverless taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona. General Motors Co (GM US), arguably the closest to Waymo in technology terms, has announced similar plans to launch an autonomous ride-sharing service in 2019.Not all is rosy in the autonomous driving garden, however. The sector has been plagued by high-profile defections of key staff leaving to either create their own startups or join competitors. These moves have led to equally high-profile and in some cases, embarrassing, law-suits. Other companies rush to hire talented artificial intelligence engineers has decimated the research ranks of leading universities.The safety and reliability of autonomous driving technology on our streets today has also been thrown into doubt in recent times. Just two days ago, on March 18'th, the first fatal accident involving an autonomous vehicle occurred in Phoenix Arizona, details here. That vehicle was a Volvo XC90 and was part of Uber Technologies Inc self-driving test fleet in the city. According to initial reports, the vehicle was operating in autonomous mode and had a safety driver on board. While we need to await the outcome of this particular investigation, previous incidents involving other autonomous vehicles highlight some astonishing shortcomings of the technology being used on our streets today. Indeed, there are now serious questions about the viability of so-called Level 3 autonomous driving in so far as they rely on emergency intervention by a driver highly likely to have been distracted by something more exciting than monitoring an automobile driving by itself. Autonomous driving is a subject far too broad to be covered in a single Insight. Consider this a primer where we begin by examining the origins of autonomous driving, tracing its roots back to 1960s which, by no coincidence, was also the starting point for much of the research on modern-day artificial intelligence. We look at the specific factors which combined to propel autonomous driving from the AI laboratories of prestigious universities to the drawing boards of multinationals around the globe. We review the framework for the different levels of autonomous driving and highlight the fact that most auto OEM's choose to largely ignore them. We then examine in detail the aforementioned issues with Level 3 autonomous driving and reveal that the technology used in the Volvo XC90, the vehicle involved in the recent fatal accident in Phoenix, specifically warns in its user manual that it should not be used for city driving and that it cannot detect pedestrians, cyclists etc. Recognizing the seminal role that Alphabet Inc Cl C (GOOG US) has played in advancing the technology, we provide an in-depth review of their self-driving initiative from its inception as a secretive Google X project to its current day incarnation as Waymo. By way of contrast, we examine the autonomous driving ambitions of one of the world's leading auto OEMs, General Motors, and provide a detailed review of their progress to date. Finally, we address the question on everybody's mind when it comes to autonomous driving - are we there yet?

Technical Analyst, Vermilion Research

Joe Jasper

Technical Analyst

Technical and Quantitative Research

Vermilion Research

Vermilion’s objective is to deliver timely, actionable, and unique technical research to professional investors through the application of our various technical indicators.

Our research strategists seek to highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various technical and quantitative indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. Our unique research methodology, centered on relative strength, enables our strategists to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing the universe of actively traded stocks into discrete sectors, then into industry groups. We then apply our technical and quantitative tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sector or group, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. We provide a historical perspective that often reveals, through our long-term charts, how price patterns often repeat themselves over time.

Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>The bullish outlook for global equities (MSCI ACWI) that we initiated in early November 2023 remains intact; continue to ride this trend higher.</li>
<li>Many of the heavily-weighted countries in terms of global market capitalization (U.S., Europe, Japan) are extended; we'd welcome some consolidation, though it may come from higher levels.</li>
<li>Ultimately, market dynamics remain healthy, and we would treat pullbacks as buying opportunities. Downgrading India to market weight. Actionable Themes: Global Materials, Energy, Consumer Discretionary, and Industrials</li>
</ul>


The bullish outlook for global equities (MSCI ACWI) that we initiated in early November 2023 remains intact; continue to ride this trend higher.
Many of the heavily-weighted countries in terms of global market capitalization (U.S., Europe, Japan) are extended; we'd welcome some consolidation, though it may come from higher levels.
Ultimately, market dynamics remain healthy, and we would treat pullbacks as buying opportunities. Downgrading India to market weight. Actionable Themes: Global Materials, Energy, Consumer Discretionary, and Industrials


Bullish Outlook Intact; Downgrading India; Buys in Materials, Energy, Discretionary, Industrials

Germany

Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (BMW) manufactures and sells cars and motorcycles. The Company offers convertible sports cars, sedans, and touring motorcycles with large displacement engines. BMW serves customers worldwide.

Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) (BMW GR)

Liquid Universe of European Ordinary and Preferred Shares: December‘23 Report

Since mid-November, spreads have generally widened across our European liquid universe of ordinary and preferred shares (9 have tightened, 10...

Jesus Rodriguez Aguilar

Liquid Universe of European Ordinary and Preferred Shares: January '22 Report

This report contains a table with a selection of European companies with non-voting shares and ordinary shares. Spreads have generally...

Jesus Rodriguez Aguilar

Liquid Universe of European Ordinary and Preferred Shares: April‘24 Report

Since mid-March, spreads have generally widened across our European liquid universe of ordinary and preferred shares (5 have tightened, 12 widened,...

Jesus Rodriguez Aguilar

Autonomous Driving- Are We There Yet?

I find it fascinating to read this again, almost six years to the day since I published it. I intend to publish an update on this topic in the...

William Keating

Bullish Outlook Intact; Downgrading India; Buys in Materials, Energy, Discretionary, Industrials

Bullish Outlook Intact on MSCI ACWI; Downgrading India to Market; Market Dynamics Healthy; Treat Pullbacks as Buying Opportunities; Buys in global...

Vermilion Research