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Mad Hedge Fund Trader

October 6 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the October 6 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from the safety of Silicon Valley.

Q: When will Freeport McMoRan (FCX) go up?

A: When the China real estate crisis ends, and they start buying copper again to build new apartment buildings.

Q: Do rising interest rates imply trouble for tech?

A: Yes, they do, but only for the short term. Long term, these things all double on a three-year view; and the next rise up in tech stocks will start when interest rates peak out, probably with 10-year yields at 1.76% or 2.00%. The great irony here is that all the big techs profit from higher rates because they have such enormous cash flows and balances.  But that is just how markets work.

Q: I know you’ve been promoting Tesla (TSLA) for a very long time. What do you think about it here?

A: We’ve just gone from $550 to over $800. It actually has been one of the best performing stocks in the market for the past four months. Short term, you want to take profits; long term you want to hold it because it could go up 10 times from the current level. They just broke all their sales records and are the fastest growing car company in the US or Europe.

Q: If Blackrock (BLK) is reliant on interest rates, will the rise in interest rates hurt them?

A: No, it’s the opposite. Rising interest rates are positive for Blackrock because it improves the return on their investments, which they get a piece of; so rising interest rates mean more money and more fees. That's why I own it— it is a rising interest rate play, not a falling interest rate play.

Q: What do you think about Baidu (BIDU)?

A: Stay away from all China trades right now, it’s uninvestable. Not only do I not know what the Chinese are going to do next—they seem to be attacking a new industry every week—but the Chinese don’t even seem to know. This is all new to them; they had been embracing the capitalist model for the last 40 years and they now seem to be backtracking. There are better fish to fry, like Morgan Stanley (MS) and JP Morgan (JPM).

Q: Don’t you have a bear put spread on Baidu (BIDU)?

A: We did have a bear put spread on Baidu, but that's only a very short term, front month trade. It does look like it’s going to make money; but keep in mind those are high-risk trades. 

Q: Could Natural Gas (UNG) trigger an economic crisis?

A: Not really. In the US, natgas is only a portion of our total energy needs, about 34%, and that’s mostly in the Midwest and California. The US has something like a 200-year supply with fracking. Plus, we’re on a price spike here—we’ve gone from $2 to $20/btu in Europe, entirely manipulated by Russia trying to get more money on their exports and more political control over Europe. So, it’s a short-term deal, and you can bet a lot of pros are out there shorting natgas like crazy right here. The real issue here is that no one wants to invest in carbon-based energy anymore and that is creating bottlenecks in the energy supply chain.

Q: How long will it take to provide EV infrastructure to mass gas station availability?

A: The EV infrastructure has in fact been in progress for 20 years, if you count the first generation of EV in the late 90s, which bombed. Tesla has been building power stations in the US for 10 years. They have 10,000 chargers now in 1,800 stations and their goal is 20,000 charging stations. In fact, most people already have the infrastructure for EV charging—you just charge them at home overnight, like I do. The only time I ever need a charge is when I go to Lake Tahoe. For gasoline engines, on the other hand, it took 20 years to build infrastructure from 1900 to 1920 to replace horses. Believe it or not, gasoline cars were the great environmental advance of the day, because it meant you could get rid of all the horses. New York City used to have 150,000 horses, and the city was constantly struggling through streets of two-foot-deep manure piles. So that was the big improvement. It only took 100 years to take the next step.

Q: The latest commodity with supply constraints I hear about is cotton. Is this all just a temporary thing and can we expect supply capacity to be back to normal next year? Is this just the failing of a just-in-time model that simply doesn’t work in the age of deglobalization?

A: We are losing possibly one third of our current economic growth due to part shortages, labor shortages, supply chain problems—those all go away next year, and that one third of economic growth just gets postponed into 2022 which means that the economic recovery is extended over a longer period of time, and so is the bull market in stocks, how about that! That’s why I’m loading the boat right here. It’s the first time I've been 100% invested since May.

Q: What do you think about the airlines here?

A: High risk, but high return play for the next year. Delta (DAL) is a play on business travel recovery. Alaska Airlines (ALK) and Southwest(LUV) are a play on a vacation travel return flying return, which has already started—we’re back to pre-pandemic TSA clearances at airports.

Q: Is Facebook (FB) a buy now?

A: No, I want to wait for the dust to settle before I go back in. I think it does recover and go to new highs eventually but will go to lower lows first. Regulation is certainly coming but we don’t know what.

Q: When will the chip shortage end?

A: Two years. My prediction is much longer than anybody else's because people are designing chips into new products like crazy. All predictions for the chip shortage to end in only a year don’t take that into account.

Q: When do we go into the (ROM) ProShares Ultra Technology long play?

A: When interest rates peak out sometime early next year. It’s probably a great entry point for tech; until then they go nowhere.

Q: Does the appetite for financials extend to Canada and their banks with higher dividends?

A: Yes, US and Canadian interest rates tend to move fairly closely so that rising rates here should be just as good for banks in Canada, and you might even be able to get them cheaper.

Q: Do you suggest we buy Altcoin?

A: No, not unless you're a Bitcoin professional like a miner, who can differentiate between all the different Altcoins. You can buy up to 100 different Altcoins on the main exchanges like Coinbase (COIN). In the crypto business, there is safety and size; that means Bitcoin ($BTCUSD) and Ethereum (ETHE), which between them account for about three quarters of all the crypto ever issued. A Lot of the smaller ones have a risk of going to zero overnight, and that has already happened many times. So go with the size—they’re less volatile but they’ll still go up in a rising market. And you should subscribe to our bitcoin letter just to get the details on how that market works.

Q: Target for Bitcoin by Christmas?

A: My conservative target is $66,000, but if we really go nuts, we could go as high as $100,000. That’s the “laser eyes” target for a lot of the early investors.

Q: Suggestions for a Crypto ETF?

A: It’s not out yet but will be shortly. I think that Crypto will run like crazy in anticipation of the Bitcoin ETF that we don’t have yet.

Q: Should I buy Moderna (MRNA) on this dip at 320 down from 400, or is this a COVID revenue flash in the pan that won’t come back?

A: It’ll come back because they’re taking their COVID technology and applying it to all other human diseases including cancer, which is why we got in this thing two years ago. But we may have to find a lower low first. So I would wait on all the drug/biotech plays which right now are getting hammered with the demise of the delta virus.

Q: What’s your favorite ETF right now?

A: Probably the (TBT) Double Short Treasury ETF. I’m looking for it to go up another 30% from here to 24 or 25 by sometime next year.

Q: EVs have been hot this year; Lordstown Motors is down to only $5 from $27 and just got downgraded by an analyst to $2. Should I buy, or is this a dangerous strategy?

A: I would say highly dangerous. This company has been signaling that it’s on its way to bankruptcy essentially all year, so don’t confuse “gone down a lot” with being “cheap” because that’s how you buy stuff on the way to zero.

Q: What about Anthony Scaramucci’s ETF?

A: We will have Anthony Scaramucci as a guest in our December summit. And the ETF is a basket of stocks as diverse as MicroStrategy (MSTR), Blok (BLOK), Visa (V), and Nvidia (NVDA), so you will only get a fraction of the Bitcoin volatility. That means if Bitcoin goes up 100% you might get a 40% or 50% move in the actual ETF.

Q: Do you have a Bitcoin book coming out soon?

A: I do, it should be out by the end of this month. That’s The Mad Hedge Guide to Trading Bitcoin, and it will have all the research I’ve accumulated on trading Bitcoin in the past year.

Q: Why have you only issued one trade alert in Bitcoin? 

A: You don’t get a lot of entry points for Bitcoin. You buy the periodic bottoms and then you run them. Dollar cost averaging is very useful here because there are no traditional valuation measures to use, like price earnings multiples or price to book. When it comes time to sell, we'll let you know, but there aren’t a lot of Bitcoin plays outside the Bitcoin exchanges.

Q: Thoughts on silver (SLV)?

A: It’s horribly out of favor now and will continue to be so as long as Bitcoin gets the spotlight. Also, there’s a China problem with the precious metals.

Q: There are 8 or 10 good public Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in Canada.

A: That’s true, if you’re allowed to trade in Canada.

Q: Can the US ban Bitcoin like China did?

A: No, if they did, it would just move offshore to the Cayman Islands or some other place outside the world of regulation.

To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log on to www.madhedgefundtrader.com, go to MY ACCOUNT, click on GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, then WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last ten years are there in all their glory.

Good Luck and Stay Healthy.

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

 

Sightseeing in Laos in 1975

 

 

 

 

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/john-thomas-1975-laos.png 620 450 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-10-08 10:02:572021-10-08 12:27:24October 6 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

October 4, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
October 4, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(IT WILL JUST TAKE LONGER)
(ROKU), (TSLA), (FB), (AMZN), (AAPL)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-10-04 15:04:422021-10-04 15:49:46October 4, 2021
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

It Will Just Take Longer

Tech Letter

The “Buy the Dip” strategy in tech stocks hasn’t failed — it will just take longer than it used to.

Much of this Nasdaq rally has been represented by the resiliency of large cap tech stocks — every mini dip was bought with a vengeance.

This go-to playbook drove tech shares higher after the March 2020 meltdown.

These past 30 days have really tested that thesis and signals that we, as market participants, have arrived at a crossroads because if the dip isn’t bought soon, we could either fall off a ledge and barrel into a harrowing correction or we could initiate a sideways correction and trade in a fixed range.

It’s hard to ignore the near-term weakness in many of the household names like Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Facebook (FB).

The upper echelon of tech leadership is signaling imminent decelerating growth and tightening financial conditions.

I do believe much of it is in the price, yet it’s cognizant to know there could be meaningful spillover from the Evergrande debt implosion in China into other asset classes.

External events are shaping the narrative around the Nasdaq dip buyers.

It also doesn’t help that a Facebook whistleblower came forward to tell the press about its malpractices and less than ideal tendencies to put profit over safety, but everyone already knew that about Facebook.

What I am surprised about is that investors usually look through the bad Facebook press and prioritize the metrics which hasn’t been happening the past month.

Facebook shares are still waiting to be bought after the dip.

The lack of Facebook shoppers on the pullback is definitely one area of concern because the U.S. government still has done very little to stop Facebook in its stubborn practices.

The U.S. government will not crack down through legislation on social media companies in the short term.

Much of the negative Nasdaq price action in the short term can be attributed to the worries about China taking a machete to its susceptible tech sector and crushing it even more.

Many don’t think the cudgeling is over.

In this scenario, a flight to safety could be in the cards, which would suppress interest rates offering an olive branch for the dip-buyers.

Ultimately, I do believe it’s a matter of time before we get some recovery price action in the leadership tech stocks; but yes, it could take 1-3 weeks.

Much of this second half of the year was consolidating tech shares that overshot themselves last year.

That’s why tech firms like Tesla (TSLA) had almost a zero percent chance of repeating last year’s performance.

Take ad tech stock Roku (ROKU) for instance, shares are down 23% YTD and that doesn’t mean it’s a bad stock.

Hardly so.

When one considers that Roku shares ended 2020 up 300%, then giving back 23% or 50% in 2021 is worth the annoyances.

These stocks can’t go up in a straight line even if they almost feel like they can sometimes.

This all sets up for a brilliant 2022, as many of these high-quality names will finally have gotten through the consolidation phase and will be buttered up to initiate their next leg up in early 2022.

In the broad scheme of things, tech won the pandemic over any other sector, and 2021 is turning into a rest year.

Sometimes one needs to go backwards one step to take the next three forward.

 

tech dip

 

tech dip

 

 

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/techoct4.png 508 936 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-10-04 15:02:472021-10-08 19:54:05It Will Just Take Longer
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

September 27, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
September 27, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(A SHORTENED RUNWAY FOR SILICON VALLEY)
(AAPL), (FB), (WIC), (SME)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-09-27 15:04:222021-09-27 15:43:21September 27, 2021
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

A Shortened Runway for Silicon Valley

Tech Letter

I’m not going to go so far as to claim the Silicon Valley tech story is over — that’s too premature.

But—and a very big but—I will say that the runway has been significantly shortened for the aircraft taking off.

In an everchanging zig-zagging tech climate — it’s my job to take the pulse of it and correspond it to the reader.

I would characterize myself as concerned with the latest developments in technology, and I specifically mean for those business models that many of you have poured your hard earned cash into.

I have gone on record saying that Silicon Valley suffers from a lack of imagination and the gravitas shortage in which to sort this out is starting to stick out like a sore thumb.

What we have is what we have.

Dynastic, hegemonic tech companies who, instead of taking the reins and helping the industry develop in terms of paradigm shifts, have chosen the way of incremental development to suck the marrow dry via the capitalistic model of short-term profits that manifest themselves in higher stock prices.

I have no problem with that at any level—higher stock prices have given my readers a chance to enrich themselves with generational wealth.

And yes, I agree with you, investing for paradigm shifts isn’t cheap, and who wants to be on the hook for this bill anyway when this gravy train isn’t over yet?

Recent signals are emblematic of the narrowing paths to profits for tech companies; they are increasingly required to pull off 4th quarter heroics to get ahead, and we are starting to rub up against the extreme limits.

Exhibit A — Facebook.

The company has confronted sharp criticism from lawmakers and users for its plan to develop an Instagram for kids and said it was pausing work on the project.

Facebook said it will re-evaluate the project at a later date as a damning expose by the Wall Street Journal.

This latest app was intended for children aged 10 to 12.

One internal Facebook presentation said that among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the issue to Instagram.

Remember that Facebook bought Instagram because Facebook, its flagship platform, was dropping users left and right.

Instagram was the savior.

I would argue that Facebook would be a $200 stock without this asset.

The next question investors should ask is, if Facebook “kids” was going to be the next growth sub-sector for Facebook, what does it do now?

It’s an uncomfortable question for Facebook shareholders and rightly so.

Again, this screams lack of innovation to me—shareholders cannot just tolerate Instagram for 8–10-year-olds, then Instagram for 6–8-year-olds, only to be followed up by the Instagram for 4-6-year-olds.

Crazy as it sounds, that was the path Facebook intended to go down.

Now, it’s time for a reset while their metaverse project isn’t ready.

Silicon Valley's Exhibit B — Apple.

Apple's earnings for Greater China in Q2 2021 were up 87.5% from this time last year, to $17.7 billion.

During its latest earnings call, Apple has announced dramatically increased revenues from Greater China for the three months ending March 2021. At 87.5% year-on-year, the percentage rise exceeds all other territories bar the rest of Asia Pacific.

On a standalone basis, higher revenue is great for the stock, and here at the Mad Hedge Tech Letter, we love higher tech shares.

The problem is that Apple’s biggest growth driver is China revenue.

I am sure that many readers have started to notice the calm before the storm in China.

If it wasn’t the real estate problems there, then sure, that’s a different industry but worrying.

However, Chairman of China Xi Ji Ping has gone on an aggressive defanging of the Chinese tech sector.

From imprisoning executives to massive fines — he is really stirring up the pot.

Apple readers also must ask themselves — how long will Apple be immune to the whims of Chairman Xi?

The answer is that it’s increasingly starting to seem like not long.

Just this last weekend, some of the biggest names in China’s tech industry made an appearance at the World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen to pledge support for the country’s “common prosperity” and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) nearly a year after the government began an extensive crackdown on the sector.

There’s a legitimate risk that Apple’s immunity pass won’t be valid for much longer.

Remind yourself that Apple just came out with iPhone 13 and is on the path to make iPhone 14, 15, 16, and up to 100 because they make good money doing it.

Also remind yourself that Android phones are now just as good for half the price so in terms of relative competition, if they didn’t have a loyal base, people might not buy iPhones anymore.

Reality sucks, doesn’t it?

The defanging of Silicon Valley is a when and not if proposition; they will be forced to bet on the next paradigm shift and if they choose correctly, they will also be the winner of it so they might as well enlarge the budget for it.

silicon valley

 

silicon valley

 

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-09-27 15:02:142021-10-06 00:12:34A Shortened Runway for Silicon Valley
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

September 10, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
September 10, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(YOUR GUIDE TO THE METAVERSE)
(RBLX), (FB), (MSFT), (APPL), (AMZN), (EPIC GAMES)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-09-10 13:04:322021-09-10 16:09:31September 10, 2021
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Your Guide to the Metaverse

Tech Letter

People have no idea what the Metaverse is, so I will be the one to fill you in.

What is the Metaverse? Simply put, the Metaverse is the next mega-phase of the internet, a merging of the physical world with XR, AR, and VR that is just beginning to revolutionize.

It is an extensive online world transcending individual tech platforms, where people exist in immersive, shared virtual spaces. Through avatars, people would be able to try on items available in stores or attend concerts with friends, just as they would offline.

On a recent earnings call, Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg detailed the Metaverse: “It's a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces,” he said. “You can kind of think about this as an embodied internet that you're inside of rather than just looking at. We believe that this is going to be the successor to the mobile internet.”

Does the Metaverse exist anywhere yet? The answer is yes, early versions of it. The closest approximations of it right now include the likes of digital game platforms Roblox (RBLX) and Fortnite.

The internet era was defined by the computer being in the living room and the connection to the internet being occasional.

The shift to mobile computing is defined by moving the computer from the living room to the office and into your pocket and changing access to the internet from occasional to continuous and persistent.

Metaverse is the idea of computing everywhere, ubiquitous, ambient. In a simplified sense, think about the Metaverse as a series of interconnected and persistent simulations.

One could almost describe it as the next internet, web 3.0.

And crypto, or some sort of crypto offspring or cousin of it, will be the coin of this new realm which is why crypto in its form now is so important.  

Consider the internet and mobile internet. Over time it disrupted nearly every industry in nearly every geography.

It changed how consumers patronized, business models, products, behaviors. This produces an extraordinary economic opportunity overall.

The same will happen via the Metaverse.

In the future, instead of just doing calls over a phone call, you’ll be able to sit as a hologram on a couch, or I’ll be able to sit as a hologram on your couch, and it’ll actually feel like we’re in the same place even though it is remote.

Sharing space is what humans perceive as closer to something real.

There’s spatial audio in which distance can change the meaning of a sentence.

This has been in the works for years, ever since Zuckerberg bought Oculus in 2014 and Oculus is effectively the gateway to the Metaverse that Zuckerberg wants to spawn.

Other power Silicon Valley elite are also moving forward into the Metaverse for their own objectives. Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella commented at his earnings call, “As the digital and physical worlds converge, we are leading in a new layer of the infrastructure stack, the enterprise Metaverse."

Many Metaverse believers say the economy of the Metaverse will be larger than that of the physical world.

Personally, I believe it will be 100X larger than the physical world’s economies and much more dynamic.

One of the biggest winners of this Metaverse race will be Epic Games —owner of Fortnite —founded by CEO Tim Sweeney.

Epic released "Fortnite" just five years ago. The game now has 350 million registered players, with anywhere from six to 12 million people playing at any given time.

The Metaverse is a great example of a technology that will likely bring huge benefits to people but there will be unintended, unanticipated costs and harms.

Right now, the Metaverse operates with zero regulations, while its previous iteration, the internet, operates with the least number of regulations out of any major industry in 2021.

The bottom line is that every power Silicon Valley has skin in the game such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix after Epic Games, and they will receive another supercharger to accelerating revenue growth.

The revenue growth in the Metaverse for these companies will make what they earn in the physical world look like a pittance.

We are driving to that point in tech development through hell or high water, and like how every company became a tech company to survive, when the Metaverse and an operable iteration of it become good enough for people to transact smoothly, every company will have to become a Metaverse company or die.

This is the future and it’s creeping closer by the day.

metaverse

 

 

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/metaverse.png 342 862 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-09-10 13:02:182021-09-16 00:31:59Your Guide to the Metaverse
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

August 30, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
August 30, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(A GREAT ALTERNATIVE IN THE AD TECH SPACE)
(SNAP), (AMZN), (FB), (GOOGL), (SDC)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2021-08-30 12:04:102021-08-30 15:58:34August 30, 2021
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

A Great Alternative in the Ad Tech Space

Tech Letter

I know many readers gripe about certain tech stocks being too expensive like Google (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), or even Amazon (AMZN), but that’s not the case for all high-quality tech names out there.

There are still deals to be had.

An undervalued tech name in the same industry, albeit more diminutive than the three I just mentioned, is ad revenue platform Snap Inc. (SNAP).

Their story is a good one and their revenue model appears to be maturing at an optimal time while still exhibiting many elements of explosive growth.

To see what I mean — Snap grew both revenue and daily active users at the highest rates they have achieved in the last four years.

Daily active users grew 23% year-over-year to 293 million — expanding revenue by 116% year-over-year to $982 million.

This outperformance reflects the momentum in SNAP's core advertising business and the positive results of their team serving ad partners helping them to generate a return on investment.

SNAP benefited from a favorable operating environment and continued success with both direct response and large brand advertisers — continue to leverage performant ad products to grow an advertiser base globally.

Adjusted EBITDA improved by $213 million compared to last year, marking the third adjusted EBITDA profitable quarter in the last 12 months as SNAP continues to demonstrate the leverage in their business as they scale.

They are also fully absorbed in making progress against revenue and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) opportunities, which I believe will be driven by three key priorities.

First, driving ROI through measurement, ranking, and optimization.

Second, investing in aggressive sales and marketing functions by continuing to train, hire, and build for scale.

And third, building innovative ad experiences around video and augmented reality, with a focus on shopping and commerce.

The commitment to these three priorities, along with a unique reach and large, engaged community, allows SNAP to drive performance at scale for businesses around the world.

They have proven through results in North America that with a robust team, surrounding resources, and a local focus, they can accelerate revenue.

They are now taking that model and replicating it in several markets that they have identified as having a large digital advertising market and significant levels of existing Snapchat adoption.

It’s true to say they still have a lot of room to grow in some of the world's most established ad markets outside of North America, especially in Europe.

For example, in the UK, France, and the Netherlands, SNAP reaches over 90% of 13- to 24-year-olds — 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds.

SNAP continues to invest heavily in video advertising, with the goal of driving results for advertising partners and connecting them to the Snapchat Generation.

For example, SNAP worked with Nielsen to help U.S. advertisers understand how to more efficiently reach their target audiences via Snap Ads.

The Total Ad Ratings study analyzed how over 30 cross-platform advertising campaigns reached people on both Snapchat and television.

The analysis showed that Snapchat campaigns contributed an average of 16% incremental reach to advertisers' target audiences, and over 70% of the Gen Z audience that was reached by Snapchat was not reached by TV-only campaigns.

This is especially important as people are increasingly cutting the cord, and mobile content consumption continues to grow, presenting SNAP with a large opportunity to help advertisers reach the Snapchat Generation at scale.

Augmented reality advertising is delivering a return on investment that is measurable and repeatable, which is encouraging the incremental businesses to invest in AR.

For example, Smile Direct Club (SDC) leveraged a Goal-Based Bidding Click optimization for Augmented Reality (AR), which drove 49% of Snap customer leads in Q2 and was the most effective ad unit at driving traffic for their business compared to other social channels.

The success of the Lens ultimately encouraged Smile Direct Club to include AR Lenses as part of their long-term business strategy.

SNAP is betting the ranch on efforts to help advertisers improve conversions and ROI, and recently launched optimization for AR, which allows advertisers to optimize their AR campaigns for down-funnel purchases and fits well into the broader shopping strategy.

SNAPs bread and butter region of North America is hitting on all cylinders with revenue growing 129% year-over-year in Q2, while ARPU grew 116% year-over-year as they continue to benefit from significant investments made in sales teams and sales support in the prior year.

At a 30-thousand-foot level, the global internet services market was valued at over $450 billion in 2020, the year in which the pandemic fundamentally altered how society functions, accelerating a push towards digital offerings.

The internet market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5% through 2027 and reach a value of $652 billion. US-based equities presently control close to 30% of the total global market share in the industry.

My takeaway from this is that even though there is GOOGL and FB in this space, the pie is growing so fast that there is easily room for others like SNAP.

One must believe that if SNAP keeps operating anywhere close to its pandemic performance relative to other companies, they are surely guaranteed to be a buy-the-dip company.

In terms of price action, that’s exactly what we have witnessed as the price has zig-zagged up by 300% — the stock price goes two levels up and retraces back one — rinse and repeat.

Just view the big down days as optimal entry points into a burgeoning social media platform and deploy capital.

In the short term, on the monetization side, I have to note that the fiscal comparisons will be more challenging in the second half as SNAP begins to lap the acceleration in top-line growth that they experienced in the prior year.

Once that sell-off gets baked into the equation via a 3-5% sell-off, readers should jump back into SNAP.

snap

 

 

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Mad Hedge Fund Trader

August 19, 2021

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
August 19, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

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