Fundamental Short Selling Research

Eric Fernandez, CFA

TwoRiversAnalytics

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>This model seeks companies that are potentially “overearning”, defined as companies with unusually high margins relative to their own history or relative to the industry. </li>
<li>The reasons for the margin increases are sometimes unsustainable or fraudulent. The  critical judgement involves to what extent unsustainable margins are embedded in a company’s forecasts and/or the stock’s valuation. </li>
<li>These shorts tend to have moderate to higher betas, higher valuations due to recent strong results and good short responses to subsequently disappointing earnings.</li>
</ul>


This model seeks companies that are potentially “overearning”, defined as companies with unusually high margins relative to their own history or relative to the industry. 
The reasons for the margin increases are sometimes unsustainable or fraudulent. The  critical judgement involves to what extent unsustainable margins are embedded in a company’s forecasts and/or the stock’s valuation. 
These shorts tend to have moderate to higher betas, higher valuations due to recent strong results and good short responses to subsequently disappointing earnings.


Overearning Short Candidates: Builders FirstSource, IBM, Forward Air Co, Deere & Co.

Independent research on the U.S. markets, Baptista Research

Baptista Research

Independent research on the U.S. markets

Baptista Research is an independent financial research house focused on the U.S. markets. We provide equity research as well as credit research reports on the top-listed U.S. companies with most of our focus on technology, consumer goods and services, automobiles, industrials, oil and gas, pharma, and healthcare. Our research has served more than 3000 institutional investors including mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, family offices, and various buy-side firms. We operate a research subscription service where institutions, as well as retail investors, can have priority access to all our research. We also have a wide distribution of our research reports across some of the top global financial platforms. Apart from equity research and credit research, we also provide advisory services with respect to mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity/ venture capital fundraising, valuation reports, and investment management services for corporates.
Baptista Research is owned and managed by Ishan Majumdar, an ex-Venture Capitalist/ Investment Banker, a Chartered Accountant, and a Masters’ degree holder in Management from HEC Paris. Ishan has nearly a decade of experience in Mergers and Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), Venture Capital Investing, Corporate Strategy, and Valuation in front-office roles at the likes of BNP Paribas CIB, Credit Agricole CIB, Groupe Danone, and TIW Private Equity. He has worked on and closed multiple acquisition deals, leveraged buyouts, and start-up investment transactions.

Equity Capital Markets

<ul><li>Deere had a challenging start to the new fiscal as a result of a work stoppage at some of its biggest U.S. plants, but managed to resolve the situation with the help of a new contract.</li><li>The company delivered another all-around beat and the performance across its segments was fueled by persistently high demand and increased production rates.</li><li>Furthermore, they launched several large wheel loaders, including 744 P-tier, 824 P-tier, 844 P-tier, and brand-new 904 P-tier.</li></ul>

Deere had a challenging start to the new fiscal as a result of a work stoppage at some of its biggest U.S. plants, but managed to resolve the situation with the help of a new contract.The company delivered another all-around beat and the performance across its segments was fueled by persistently high demand and increased production rates.Furthermore, they launched several large wheel loaders, including 744 P-tier, 824 P-tier, 844 P-tier, and brand-new 904 P-tier.

Deere & Co: New Product Launches & Other Drivers

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>Since early-October we have discussed our expectation for a bear rally, targeting the 200-day MAs on the $IWM and $SPX; targets were hit (within 0.5% of hitting on SPX).</li>
<li>We are now seeing short-term uptrend breaks on the IWM and the DJIA; this is a good time to get defensive and/or take profits, as the 1.5-month rally appears over.</li>
<li>We expect more weakness in the weeks ahead, and we cannot rule out another test of the 2022 lows.</li>
</ul>


Since early-October we have discussed our expectation for a bear rally, targeting the 200-day MAs on the $IWM and $SPX; targets were hit (within 0.5% of hitting on SPX).
We are now seeing short-term uptrend breaks on the IWM and the DJIA; this is a good time to get defensive and/or take profits, as the 1.5-month rally appears over.
We expect more weakness in the weeks ahead, and we cannot rule out another test of the 2022 lows.


Time to Get Defensive After 1.5-Month Uptrend Breaks; High Yield Spreads Widening Much Like Mid-Aug.

Equity Long-Short Analyst

Pyari Menon

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul>
<li>We write about one stock each from the large, mid and small cap portfolios, briefly giving the reasons behind their the innovation scores and inclusion in the portfolio.  </li>
<li>The three companies are <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/johnson-johnson-831a1ab9-b291-4564-99b0-dc7f8d2b8175" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:26818:1" rel="noopener">Johnson &amp; Johnson (JNJ UN)</a> , <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/mondelez-international-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8111:1" rel="noopener">Mondelez International (MDLZ US)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/qorvo-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:11965:1" rel="noopener">Qorvo Inc (QRVO US), which have the highest weighting in each portfolio</a>
</li>
<li>For the week the large cap portfolio was up 1.2%, the midcap was up 1.4% and the small cap was up 0.9%, all in US$ terms.  </li>
</ul>


We write about one stock each from the large, mid and small cap portfolios, briefly giving the reasons behind their the innovation scores and inclusion in the portfolio.  
The three companies are Johnson &amp; Johnson (JNJ UN) , Mondelez International (MDLZ US) and Qorvo Inc (QRVO US), which have the highest weighting in each portfolio

For the week the large cap portfolio was up 1.2%, the midcap was up 1.4% and the small cap was up 0.9%, all in US$ terms.  


How the Portfolios Did for the First Week

Financial Select Sector SPDR F / Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>The market remains in bear market rally mode, and our price target remains the 200-day MAs on the SPX and Russell 2000, as discussed in last week's Compass (Oct. 25).</li>
<li>Longer-Term, this is still a bear market until the S&amp;P 500 and IWM can break above their respective YTD downtrends/200-day MAs, and markets could easily test their lows again.</li>
<li>With that said, there are signs that suggest breakouts above YTD downtrends/200-day MAs could be coming. Catalysts include the FOMC announcement on Wednesday, followed by midterm elections on Nov. 8.</li>
</ul>


The market remains in bear market rally mode, and our price target remains the 200-day MAs on the SPX and Russell 2000, as discussed in last week's Compass (Oct. 25).
Longer-Term, this is still a bear market until the S&amp;P 500 and IWM can break above their respective YTD downtrends/200-day MAs, and markets could easily test their lows again.
With that said, there are signs that suggest breakouts above YTD downtrends/200-day MAs could be coming. Catalysts include the FOMC announcement on Wednesday, followed by midterm elections on Nov. 8.


Bear Market Rally Continues; Financials/XLF Reversing YTD Downtrend; Small-Caps at 11-Month RS Highs

United States

Deere & Company manufactures and distributes a range of agricultural, construction and forestry, and commercial and consumer equipment.  The Company supplies replacement parts for its own products and for those of other manufacturers. Deere also provides product and parts financing services. Deere and Company extends its services and products worldwide.

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Deere & Co (DE US)

Overearning Short Candidates: Builders FirstSource, IBM, Forward Air Co, Deere & Co.

Margin over-earners are fertile hunting ground for shorts if the reasons for the margin increase are unsustainable or fraudulent. This week:...

Eric Fernandez, CFA

Deere & Co: New Product Launches & Other Drivers

Deere had a challenging start to the new fiscal as a result of a work stoppage at some of its biggest U.S. plants, but managed to resolve the...

Baptista Research

Time to Get Defensive After 1.5-Month Uptrend Breaks; High Yield Spreads Widening Much Like Mid-Aug.

Our targets for this bear rally have been hit, which were the 200-day MAs on $IWM and $SPX (within 0.5%). Now seeing short-term uptrend breaks on...

Vermilion Research

How the Portfolios Did for the First Week

We assess how the three portfolios did for the first week and discuss about one stock each from the large, mid and small cap portfolios, briefly...

Pyari Menon

Bear Market Rally Continues; Financials/XLF Reversing YTD Downtrend; Small-Caps at 11-Month RS Highs

The market is still in bear market rally mode, and our price target remains the 200-day MAs on the $SPX and $IWM. $XLF YTD downtrend reversal, $XLV...

Vermilion Research

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