Value Investing

Vladimir Dimitrov, CFA

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>Most of the red flags that I have outlined before are now being taken care of, but I remain cautious for the time being.</li>
<li>The market continues to react negatively to what was in my view a very good quarter, says Salesforce's chief executive.</li>
<li>A lot has changed since I first covered Salesforce (<span class="ticker-hover-wrapper">NYSE:CRM</span>), back in December of 2020.</li>
</ul>


Most of the red flags that I have outlined before are now being taken care of, but I remain cautious for the time being.
The market continues to react negatively to what was in my view a very good quarter, says Salesforce's chief executive.
A lot has changed since I first covered Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), back in December of 2020.


Salesforce: The Market Is Once Again Missing The Forest For The Trees

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One, Periscope Analytics

Brian Freitas

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One

Periscope Analytics

Periscope Analytics focuses on event-driven trades across Asia Pacific and provides comprehensive, timely and systematic coverage of index changes to major Asia Pacific indices in a structured manner.

The analysis includes forecasted inclusions and exclusions to all major Asian indices that have significant amount of tracking assets, including estimates of passive buy/sell flow on the stocks. The service also provides commentary and impact of market consultations, ground rule changes, and other events (IPOs, spin-offs, M&A) that could lead to index changes and passive flow.

Periscope Analytics works with multi-strategy hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, stat arb trading groups and long-only investors that invest and trade in the Asia Pacific region with the data being used to trade index rebalances, avoid pre-positioning and passive flow, and to time entry into and exit from stocks.

Event-Driven Trades Across Asia Pacific

Event-Driven

<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/amazon-com-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:409:1" rel="noopener">Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US)</a> will replace <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/walgreens-boots-alliance-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1118:1" rel="noopener">Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA US)</a> in the <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/dow-jones-industrial-average" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:22887:1" rel="noopener">Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU INDEX)</a> at the close on 23 February.</li>
<li>Passives will need to sell a lot of <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/walmart-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:11134:1" rel="noopener">Walmart (WMT US)</a> following the 3:1 stock split and buy a lot of <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/amazon-com-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:409:1" rel="noopener">Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US)</a>. </li>
<li>Given the ad hoc nature of the rebalances and the short timeline between announcement and implementation, the stocks could move over the rest of the week.</li>
</ul>



Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US) will replace Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA US) in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU INDEX) at the close on 23 February.
Passives will need to sell a lot of Walmart (WMT US) following the 3:1 stock split and buy a lot of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US). 
Given the ad hoc nature of the rebalances and the short timeline between announcement and implementation, the stocks could move over the rest of the week.


Dow Jones Industrials (INDU) Index Rebalance: Amazon (AMZN) Replaces Walgreen Boots (WBA)

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research Analyst, Obex Capital Research

Aaron Gabin

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research Analyst

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research

Obex Capital Research

“Obex” is Latin for Barriers to Entry. Obex Capital Management’s investment philosophy is driven by an intense focus on which business model’s Barriers to Entry are able to withstand the ever increasing competitive disruption in the TMT and Consumer Sectors.

<p>In between earnings seasons, we are trying to catch up on the flurry of TMT IPOs over the past few months that have caught our eye. Why Digital Ocean? We're pretty big Amazon bulls cause of AWS, so when we heard there was this mini-AWS that the developer community swears by, had 30%+ EBITDA margins, was accelerating growth by growing dollar retention rates and ARPUs...we had to learn more. Strikes us at the type of business that could be a 5 to 10-bagger over the next year or two. </p><div class="content-highlight"><p>Obex’s fundamental research process is focused on secular change in the TMT and Consumer sectors. We seek to differentiate between fundamental business analysis and security analysis. Before deciding if a security’s pricing and positioning merit a long or short position, we analyze the four pillars of business fundamentals (Secular Factors, TAM, Competitive Advantage, Business Model) in order to determine if this is a “good” or “not so good” opportunity.</p></div>

In between earnings seasons, we are trying to catch up on the flurry of TMT IPOs over the past few months that have caught our eye. Why Digital Ocean? We're pretty big Amazon bulls cause of AWS, so when we heard there was this mini-AWS that the developer community swears by, had 30%+ EBITDA margins, was accelerating growth by growing dollar retention rates and ARPUs...we had to learn more. Strikes us at the type of business that could be a 5 to 10-bagger over the next year or two. Obex’s fundamental research process is focused on secular change in the TMT and Consumer sectors. We seek to differentiate between fundamental business analysis and security analysis. Before deciding if a security’s pricing and positioning merit a long or short position, we analyze the four pillars of business fundamentals (Secular Factors, TAM, Competitive Advantage, Business Model) in order to determine if this is a “good” or “not so good” opportunity.

<p>The headline for Amazon’s quarter was that its revenue growth decelerated 1700bps to 24% YoY , and appears set to decelerate another 1000bps in 3Q. Tough comps people. Tough comps.</p><p>The company has to invest more and more money to keep up with demand…historically, these are the times you invest in Amazon, when its going through capacity buildouts…its just never happened before that Amazon has had ongoing investment cycles for multiple years. In the end…the absolute size and profitability of the business will be larger. It might just take 2-3 quarters to prove out.</p><p>In the meantime, its higher margin AWS and Advertising businesses are ACCELERATING. AWS on a $59B runrate, growing 37% (500bps acceleration QoQ), Advertising on a $32B runrate, growing 87% (1400bps acceleration). We value these two businesses at ~2T….which is 30% ahead of the current market cap. We think retail is also worth ~$1T, which is what get us to our $3T valuation, which equates to $6,000 a share. </p><div class="content-highlight"><p>Obex’s fundamental research process is focused on secular change in the TMT and Consumer sectors. We seek to differentiate between fundamental business analysis and security analysis. Before deciding if a security’s pricing and positioning merit a long or short position, we analyze the four pillars of business fundamentals (Secular Factors, TAM, Competitive Advantage, Business Model) in order to determine if this is a “good” or “not so good” opportunity.</p></div>

The headline for Amazon’s quarter was that its revenue growth decelerated 1700bps to 24% YoY , and appears set to decelerate another 1000bps in 3Q. Tough comps people. Tough comps.The company has to invest more and more money to keep up with demand…historically, these are the times you invest in Amazon, when its going through capacity buildouts…its just never happened before that Amazon has had ongoing investment cycles for multiple years. In the end…the absolute size and profitability of the business will be larger. It might just take 2-3 quarters to prove out.In the meantime, its higher margin AWS and Advertising businesses are ACCELERATING. AWS on a $59B runrate, growing 37% (500bps acceleration QoQ), Advertising on a $32B runrate, growing 87% (1400bps acceleration). We value these two businesses at ~2T….which is 30% ahead of the current market cap. We think retail is also worth ~$1T, which is what get us to our $3T valuation, which equates to $6,000 a share. Obex’s fundamental research process is focused on secular change in the TMT and Consumer sectors. We seek to differentiate between fundamental business analysis and security analysis. Before deciding if a security’s pricing and positioning merit a long or short position, we analyze the four pillars of business fundamentals (Secular Factors, TAM, Competitive Advantage, Business Model) in order to determine if this is a “good” or “not so good” opportunity.

Amazon 2Q21: Pay Attention to AWS and Advertising

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 MSCI Emerging Markets / Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>The bullish outlook we initiated in early November 2023 remains intact. The SPX and QQQ still refuse to close below their 20-day MAs/21-day EMAs for more than 2-3 consecutive days.</li>
<li>Even if/when they do, important supports are close by, including 4983-5050 on the S&amp;P 500 and $425-$433 on QQQ (gap supports from 2/22/24). Anything above 4800 SPX is a buy.</li>
<li>We continue to get an ever-increasing number of global indexes/Sectors with long-term breakouts, the latest being the MSCI Emerging Market and Frontier indexes. Clearly risk-on behavior.</li>
</ul>


The bullish outlook we initiated in early November 2023 remains intact. The SPX and QQQ still refuse to close below their 20-day MAs/21-day EMAs for more than 2-3 consecutive days.
Even if/when they do, important supports are close by, including 4983-5050 on the S&amp;P 500 and $425-$433 on QQQ (gap supports from 2/22/24). Anything above 4800 SPX is a buy.
We continue to get an ever-increasing number of global indexes/Sectors with long-term breakouts, the latest being the MSCI Emerging Market and Frontier indexes. Clearly risk-on behavior.


Long-Term Breakouts for Emerging and Frontier Markets; Treasury Yields and Commodities Rising YTD

United States

salesforce.com, inc. provides software on demand. The Company supplies a customer relationship management service to businesses worldwide providing a technology platform for customers and developers to build and run business applications. Clients use salesforce.com to manage their customer, sales and operational data.

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Salesforce.Com Inc (CRM US)

Salesforce: The Market Is Once Again Missing The Forest For The Trees

Most of the red flags that I have outlined before are now being taken care of, but I remain cautious for the time being.

Vladimir Dimitrov, CFA

Dow Jones Industrials (INDU) Index Rebalance: Amazon (AMZN) Replaces Walgreen Boots (WBA)

Amazon replaces Walgreen Boots in the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the close on 23 February following Walmart's stock split. There will be over...

Brian Freitas

Recent IPO Insights: Digital Ocean

Why Digital Ocean? When we heard there was this mini-AWS that the developer community swears by, had 30%+ EBITDA margins, was accelerating net...

Aaron Gabin

Amazon 2Q21: Pay Attention to AWS and Advertising

Retail decelerated ALOT. In the meantime, its higher margin AWS and Advertising businesses are ACCELERATING. We value these two businesses at...

Aaron Gabin

Long-Term Breakouts for Emerging and Frontier Markets; Treasury Yields and Commodities Rising YTD

Long-Term Breakouts for Emerging and Frontier Markets $EEM $FM; Bullish Outlook Intact on $SPX $QQQ; Treasury Yields and Commodities Rising YTD has...

Vermilion Research

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