Founder & Managing Director, AIR Control Tower, AIR Control Tower

Neil Glynn

Founder & Managing Director, AIR Control Tower

AIR Control Tower

AIR Control Tower is an independent research and analysis platform. Its mission is to provide impactful insight and analysis across the global airline industry at a company and market level via detailed financial models to aid decision making for key stake holders at a time when risks have seldom, if ever, been higher and the global sector grapples with the imperative of funding de-carbonisation. Unique analysis forecasting global carrier-level earnings/cash flows, and restructuring/de-leveraging prospects, is designed to dynamically assess the health of the industry, predict surprises and identify potential requirements for third party support.

Insights on the global airline industry

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>Copa’s 2023 EBITDAR of $1,117m was achieved while growing unit revenues, while capacity expanded 13% with a 17% unit fuel cost tailwind. Not an easy feat.</li>
<li>In 2024, we expect only 5% EBITDAR growth on 10% capacity growth as unit revenues decline (following the emergence of this theme in 2H23) and EBITDAR-level unit costs grow.</li>
<li>We model Copa's EBITDAR/ASM premium to 2019 down to a still-impressive 35% in 2024 but new route selection and efficiency will need to be strong to sustain these economics.</li>
</ul>


Copa’s 2023 EBITDAR of $1,117m was achieved while growing unit revenues, while capacity expanded 13% with a 17% unit fuel cost tailwind. Not an easy feat.
In 2024, we expect only 5% EBITDAR growth on 10% capacity growth as unit revenues decline (following the emergence of this theme in 2H23) and EBITDAR-level unit costs grow.
We model Copa's EBITDAR/ASM premium to 2019 down to a still-impressive 35% in 2024 but new route selection and efficiency will need to be strong to sustain these economics.


Copa Holdings - A Slow-Growth Year in 2024 – Impressive Gain on Pre-Pandemic Economics Sustainable?

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

iShares Russell 2000 ETF / Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>We discussed last week how consolidation was likely, so far that has played out with the SPX back testing the 4300-4325 area which we anticipated would cap upside for 2023.</li>
<li>We continue to watch short-term support at 4300, and we cannot be bearish if the S&amp;P 500 is above 4300.</li>
<li>The Russell 2000 (IWM) is back to test support at $180; we would expect to see this hold as support, but a failure to hold would mean a trip to $170
</li>
</ul>


We discussed last week how consolidation was likely, so far that has played out with the SPX back testing the 4300-4325 area which we anticipated would cap upside for 2023.
We continue to watch short-term support at 4300, and we cannot be bearish if the S&amp;P 500 is above 4300.
The Russell 2000 (IWM) is back to test support at $180; we would expect to see this hold as support, but a failure to hold would mean a trip to $170



Russell 2000 (IWM) Testing $180 Support; Breadth Remains Constructive; Construction/Engineering Buys

NASDAQ Composite Index / Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>Since January 2023 we've anticipated for 4165-4200 to cap upside on the S&amp;P 500 for 2023, but that a rally to 4300-4325 is also possible; this remains our view.</li>
<li>In our 5/2/23 Compass we discussed how the Nasdaq Composite was testing 12,300 resistance, and that a breakout and reach to 13,180 is possible.</li>
<li>The Nasdaq Composite hit 13,154 Tuesday as Technology (XLK), and to a lesser extent Communications (XLC), are seemingly in a blowoff stage, while all other Sectors are neutral to bearish.</li>
</ul>


Since January 2023 we've anticipated for 4165-4200 to cap upside on the S&amp;P 500 for 2023, but that a rally to 4300-4325 is also possible; this remains our view.
In our 5/2/23 Compass we discussed how the Nasdaq Composite was testing 12,300 resistance, and that a breakout and reach to 13,180 is possible.
The Nasdaq Composite hit 13,154 Tuesday as Technology (XLK), and to a lesser extent Communications (XLC), are seemingly in a blowoff stage, while all other Sectors are neutral to bearish.


Downgrading Discretionary & Health Care to Market Weight, Staples & Utilities to Underweight

Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning, Copley Fund Research

Steven Holden

Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning

Copley Fund Research

Copley Fund Research provide research and data on asset allocation among Global and Emerging Market equity funds.  The analysis details absolute and relative positioning across countries, sectors and industries together with highly granular data on single stock and single fund allocations.  The data is updated monthly with time series going back to January 2011.

Global Research - Analysis of 165 prominent Global equity funds, combined AUM $335bn
GEM Research - Analysis of 127 prominent global EM equity funds, combined AUM $250bn

Asset Allocation - Global and GEM Equity

Cross Asset Strategy

Average weights among Frontier market countries stand at a combined 0.86%, with 42.5% of the EM funds in our analysis having some exposure to Frontier.  On a country level, Vietnam dominates, held by 19.6% of funds, followed by Kazakhstan and Panama.The most widely held stocks are <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/copa-holdings-sa-class-a" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:6110:1" rel="noopener">Copa Holdings Sa Class A (CPA US)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/kaspi-kz-jsc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:33382:1" rel="noopener">Kaspi.KZ JSC (KSPI LI)</a> , with 10.4% and 10% of funds invested respectively.On a fund level, openings in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/kaspi-kz-jsc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:33382:1" rel="noopener">Kaspi.KZ JSC (KSPI LI)</a> dominate the picture, with Carmignac Emerging Discovery, Fidelity and BlackRock opening positions, among others.  Closures in Nova Ljubljanska Banka from TT International, Goldman Sachs and Polar Capital are the stand outs.  Analysis taken from our Emerging Markets Research, covering 242 active GEM funds with combined AUM of $500bn

Average weights among Frontier market countries stand at a combined 0.86%, with 42.5% of the EM funds in our analysis having some exposure to Frontier.  On a country level, Vietnam dominates, held by 19.6% of funds, followed by Kazakhstan and Panama.The most widely held stocks are Copa Holdings Sa Class A (CPA US) and Kaspi.KZ JSC (KSPI LI) , with 10.4% and 10% of funds invested respectively.On a fund level, openings in Kaspi.KZ JSC (KSPI LI) dominate the picture, with Carmignac Emerging Discovery, Fidelity and BlackRock opening positions, among others.  Closures in Nova Ljubljanska Banka from TT International, Goldman Sachs and Polar Capital are the stand outs.  Analysis taken from our Emerging Markets Research, covering 242 active GEM funds with combined AUM of $500bn

Transport Sector, China and Asia-focused Research

Charles De Trenck

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

This has been a crazy market, with dollar, US market and oil strong at the same time, with commodities up in general, but on a hair trigger. It’s a weird mix. But one that pivoted energy plays from dogs to stars once again. Which, of course, could pivot them back down, though not all oil names are created equal.I see three or four streams in my oil plays: (1) energy majors which have been most stable in inching back or overtaking their January highs, (2) energy MLPs, which have recovered back a…

This has been a crazy market, with dollar, US market and oil strong at the same time, with commodities up in general, but on a hair trigger. It’s a weird mix. But one that pivoted energy plays from dogs to stars once again. Which, of course, could pivot them back down, though not all oil names are created equal.I see three or four streams in my oil plays: (1) energy majors which have been most stable in inching back or overtaking their January highs, (2) energy MLPs, which have recovered back a…

Panama

Copa Holdings SA provides international airline passenger and cargo service. The Company provides scheduled flights to countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Company also has codeshare arrangements with Continental Airlines.

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Copa Holdings SA (CPAN MM)

Copa Holdings - A Slow-Growth Year in 2024 – Impressive Gain on Pre-Pandemic Economics Sustainable?

Illustration of how difficult it will be for Copa to protect gross profit and EBITDAR per ASM at elevated levels relative to pre-pandemic.

Neil Glynn

Russell 2000 (IWM) Testing $180 Support; Breadth Remains Constructive; Construction/Engineering Buys

Russell 2000 $IWM Testing $180 Support; $RTY $SPX Breadth Remains Constructive; Highlighting buy ideas in Services (Research/Consulting &...

Vermilion Research

Downgrading Discretionary & Health Care to Market Weight, Staples & Utilities to Underweight

5/2/23 we discussed how $Nasdaq Comp was testing 12,300 resistance, and that a breakout and reach to 13,180 was possible. It hit 13,154 Tuesday as...

Vermilion Research

Frontier Markets Exposure in EM Funds

With Argentina and Kuwait moving up to Emerging status, how are active EM investors positioned in the current crop of Frontier Markets?

Steven Holden

The Best Way to Play Oil with Cover

This has been a crazy market, with dollar, US market and oil strong at the same time, with commodities up in general, but on a hair trigger. It’s a...

Charles De Trenck

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