Peloton (PTON) is a tech company I once hated, but that is now undergoing a renaissance because the pandemic has created a surge in demand for home exercise solutions.
In its most recent earnings report, revenue frothed to 172% to $607.1 million, crushing both the consensus estimate of $580 million and the company's own guidance.
Connected Fitness subscribers more than doubled to 1.09 million, and Digital memberships more than tripled to nearly 320,000.
Peloton quite simply is struggling to keep up with demand, like many other winners in the shelter-at-home tech trade.
Peloton has been pedal to the metal expanding manufacturing capacity at third-party contract manufacturers and its in-house manufacturing operations.
Peloton had acquired Tonic, one of its bike manufacturers, a little less than a year ago as part of a vertical integration pivot.
CEO John Foley also noted that the company had to balance the trade-offs with how it allocated capacity.
Peloton recently introduced a new Tread that's more affordable, but it also needed to ramp unit volume.
Foley commented, "While we had hoped to launch our new Tread more quickly and in greater supply, we had to make some tough decisions regarding supply chain resource allocation due to the surge in demand we've been experiencing for our Bike."
Connected Fitness subscriber growth is starting to become constrained at the back half of the quarter, but that was largely due to ongoing supply constraints as opposed to a lack of demand.
The resurgence in coronavirus cases over the summer contributed to another spike in demand for the products so imagine what a winter spike could mean for the company too.
The flip side is that the surge in virus cases has made it challenging to meaningfully reduce order delivery time frames in the US.
Peloton has materially increased production capacity in recent months and continue to grow manufacturing capabilities, but do not expect a normalized order to delivery windows in the U.S. prior to the end of Q2 fiscal '21.
Peloton's financial performance for the rest of 2020 will center around its ability to ramp production in order to satisfy demand.
Conversely, some of the biggest losers in the economy are gyms, and Peloton is feasting on this opportunity.
It’s becoming clearer that connected fitness has a massive runway for growth, especially with over 180 million people around the globe that—prior to the health crisis —belonged to a gym.
Quarterly workouts surged to almost 77 million in the quarter. That’s 25 workouts per connected fitness subscription on average per month.
That is the differentiation that Peloton is myopically focused on because that leads to low churn, that leads to great word of mouth and, frankly, it’s what I believe has changed this category of fitness because there’s finally something that is sustainable and located in the safety of one’s house.
Workouts per subscription have basically doubled from a year ago due to improvements in digital content offerings across non-bike formats like strength training and yoga.
Another tailwind is the accessibility of that content on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV right at the touch screen of the Peloton Bike.
It’s almost as if the coronavirus saved this company and Peloton hasn’t looked back.
Although I was discouraged about Peloton before the pandemic, it appears like a rejuvenated company during the virus era.
Luck sometimes needs to fall on your side and trading pullbacks from the long side makes sense with Peloton right now.
Considering it achieved its first profitable quarter, this exercise-from-home revolution has legs, and incremental revenue gains are highly probable moving forward.
They were just a marginal tech company before, but although not a juggernaut, they have come closer to respectability which is saying a lot for Peloton.
Remember that daily volatility is high in Peloton, I would not hold it until the next crash. Sell for profits and wait for a pullback to get a lower cost basis. Rinse and repeat.
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“It's simple science: exercising creates endorphins and endorphins make us happy. On the most basic level, Peloton sells happiness.” – Said CEO of Peloton John Foley
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The world, technology, and U.S. economy are rapidly approaching a paradigm shift and investors will need to keep their finger on the pulse to adjust and adapt to the new normal.
This tech letter is about a recent note from Deutsche Bank that landed in my inbox and the contents are so pertinent that I must address it and what it means for the U.S. tech sector.
The note essentially said that the “era of globalization” is over and hunker down for the “age of disorder” where millennials are disenfranchised, poor, and largely disconnected from the financial benefits mostly harvested by the boomer generation.
The coronavirus has woken up the sleeping giant of Americas’ youth - they have come to grips that even though they use the flashy apps of Facebook (FB), Google (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN) on their shiny Apple (AAPL) iPhone, they don’t exactly build wealth from these companies.
In fact, it’s the other way around.
According to Deutsche Bank, the next step in the development of the U.S. tech sphere is taking “revenge and redistributing wealth” from the old to the young.
The bottoming of tech stocks in March and the explosive price action have mainly benefited the shareholders who are from an older cohort and then the hardest hit was the youngest.
As Millennials start to grow in to positions of power, inheriting Apple or Amazon stock will most likely become costlier because the inheritance tax could balloon.
Boomers who mostly hold Congress seats have also stonewalled regulation on tech.
Tech, in fact, has the least amount of regulation out of any industry in the U.S. and nothing has been done to stop them from building up ironclad monopolies.
This could culminate in not only a tech tax on realized gains, but REAL regulation that won’t happen until political power is shifted over to the Millennials.
Climate change has been wreaking havoc in the Western region of the United States, but Deutsche Bank says that an even greater risk is the “intergenerational conflicts” that are about to explode.
The truth is that many young people feel alienated and stifled by the status quo as if the “establishment” is the only group in the U.S. that has benefited.
According to Deutsche Bank, Millennials also feel that the government is only working for corporations and the “elite.”
This data also doesn’t necessarily pinpoint one racial or ethnic group in the Millennial category but is a broad analysis that cuts across all shades of the spectrum.
As of July 2020, 52% of millennials were living in their parents’ home, up from 47% in February, according to the Pew analysis of Census Bureau data.
Young people simply cannot afford to live independently now.
If this power pivot does take place, corporate taxes will meaningfully go up, irrespective of what Biden does if he gets elected, and that is terrible news for the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and so on.
These “redistributive policies” will be seen as a desperate act of saving Millennial’s financial lives as the increasing debt load will exacerbate inflation, meaning it will be more expensive each day to be an American wielding a weakening dollar.
The group of 7 big cap tech stocks will have to adjust to these new conditions, and clearly the riskiest company is Facebook who has been overstepping data privacy laws and destroying democracy for years.
These issues will finally be addressed when Millennials age into power.
Millennials are sure to take a hatchet to Boomers' pension benefits as the debt built up will need to be repaid and cuts along the financial chain must be accepted to the detriment of Boomers' inheritance plans.
It appears as if making money hand over fist, that mostly the Boomers enjoyed, will certainly be tested moving forward.
As the world quickly deglobalizes, tech companies won’t be able to outsource semi chips to Taiwan and assemble devices in China on the cheap.
These strategies must move inward and locally to support American jobs.
The inquest is out, and unfettered globalization and capitalism have been handed a guilty verdict by the Millennial generation.
The deeper ramification is that unfettered asset appreciation will likely be a relic of the past.
If you look at these tech charts, they basically appreciate in a straight line. Get ready for more zig-zags, and if regulation hits hard, we could also be facing zeroes in certain strategic tech firms.
Honestly, a company like Facebook doesn’t produce anything and is overvalued for it.
Then there is the issue of whether Millennials are content on the ever-growing problem of financing zombie companies that now comprise 37% of the S&P because of artificially low-interest rates.
Fed Governors like Jerome Powell will soon become obsolete and blamed in the history books for recklessness.
I define zombie companies as companies that cannot even pay back interest on debt let alone principal payments.
These companies are a serious drag on innovation because they perpetually fund companies that should not exist adding to the debt load.
The artificially low rates have boosted tech shares and broader markets for years along with the Trump corporate tax cut.
Buybacks will eventually become illegal because of the conflict of interests.
Just take a look at the big airlines whose management milked the cash cow and left the rainy-day fund barren to only get bailed out billions of dollars.
That won’t happen again.
Corporate funding will get significantly harder in the next year of corporate America. Investors should take note that management is rushing to capital markets to get every last penny of funding before the election because terms of financing could sour quickly in November.
US and China geopolitical relations will worsen and we are already seeing it play out as China has notified the U.S. that they would prefer TikTok to be deleted instead of generating a sale.
All Chinese tech apps will be removed, and Chinese tech companies won’t be allowed to list on U.S. public exchanges.
Don’t expect anymore “Chinese investment” into Silicon Valley for the foreseeable future, and that goes for education where the Chinese Communist Party has bought off Harvard University for a $1 billion.
U.S. Millennials now must compete with the Chinese government who are glad to fund their zombie companies in a race to the bottom.
This doesn’t exactly scream a higher-quality life for future Millennials exacerbating the problem.
Climate change is on the verge of compounding from bad to worse as California is grappling with not only apocalyptic air quality but a pandemic.
Who knows the next time anyone will be able to go outside in California?
Do you think rolling blackouts will encourage tech start-ups to continue operations in California?
Computers and internet don’t function without electricity – someone should tell California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Tech startups will never happen in California again, likely catalyzing a renaissance in zero state income states with cheap property markets.
Ultimately, we are currently in the midst of a technology revolution with astonishing equity valuations reflecting expectations for serious disruption to the status quo.
Call it a bubble or whatever you want, but the fragility of this bubble is real and we only need one external event for a major correction.
Then there is the thorny issue of whether markets will flip out over negative interest rates if that actually happens.
The report goes on to say that there is a “bipolar standoff as both the US and China seek to prevent encirclement by the other. Companies that have embraced globalization will be stuck in the middle if relations sour as we fear.”
It’s clear to the naked eye that the prior strategy of “scaling” a tech company like Facebook and Apple just won’t work anymore because so many territories will be off-limits.
Creating the next unicorn will be that much harder as many of the tailwinds boosting tech the last 25 years are on the verge of winding down.
As we enter this transition stage, I expect one of the big tech companies to falter through regulation or some other black swan event.
These developments favor active tech stock managers who must recalibrate daily according to wild swings that we will experience.
Buckle up because this will be a wild ride.
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“I'm as proud of what we don't do as I am of what we do.” – Said CEO of Apple Steve Jobs
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That is the conclusion from Hindenburg Research after an extensive investigation behind the origination and current business model of Nikola Corporation (NKLA).
This alleged “intricate” fraud has culminated financially with GM acquiring $2 billion in stock (an 11% stake) in Nikola for non-cash contributions such as engineering and validating a truck for Nikola, $700 million in expense reimbursements, supply contracts, and 80% of the EV credits.
What are the critical problems with Nikola?
There is a laundry list of them.
Inexpensive hydrogen is fundamental to the success of Nikola’s business model. CEO of Nikola Trevor Milton misled hundreds of people and in multiple interviews to have succeeded at cutting the cost of hydrogen by 81% compared to peers.
He also claimed that the company is producing hydrogen.
Nikola has not produced hydrogen at this price or at any price, as he later admitted when pressed.
Trevor claims Nikola designs all key components in-house, but it seems that they have merely bought them from third parties.
Nikola actually buys inverters from a company called Cascadia. In a video showing off its “in-house” inverters, Nikola concealed the Cascadia label with a piece of masking tape.
Their order book has been gerrymandered by touting multi-billion dollars that aren’t real. U.S. Xpress reportedly accounts for a third of its reservations, representing $3.5 billion in orders, but U.S. Xpress had only $1.3 million in cash on hand last quarter.
The actual development of the car has never come to fruition or even started, but seems like an elaborate hoax just to get investors' money by producing fake commercials.
In 2016, Milton hyped “The Holy Grail” of hydrogen technology for trucking, but there has been zero evidence of this.
Milton stenciled in “H2” on the truck despite the vehicle displaying zero hydrogen capabilities
Constructing a zero-emission hydrogen truck is rather difficult. However, merely stenciling “H2” and “Zero Emission Hydrogen Electric” on the side of a non-functioning truck is much easier.
Even the design has been outsourced to a company called Stellar Strategy LLC. Stellar is a well-known producer of off-road vehicles who had advised Nikola on the open cabin version.
The biggest fraud, which can’t be glossed over, is the claim about its battery technology.
Nikola claimed to have cutting edge battery technology, but that was merely a lie.
They planned to buy Battery Tech but found out after it was a vaporware company created by a man who had been indicted months earlier after using his NASA expense account to hire prostitutes.
In 2019, after a signed partnership with Bosch and Powercell, Powercell terminated its partnership saying the business terms were “totally unacceptable”.
After this marginal behavior, Nikola went public then giving it access to billions of public funding even though it had never designed, built, or delivered any resemblance of a car since 2014.
Then the CEO said it produces hydrogen for under $3/kg, representing a 81% discount to the rest of the world, but later admitted it was not true.
What about its staff?
Nikola’s director of hydrogen production/infrastructure is Milton’s little brother, who paved driveways in Hawaii before his Nikola job.
Nikola’s head of infrastructure development is the former general manager of a golf club In Idaho.
Lastly, Nikola’s Chief Engineer was a pinball machine repair guy before his Nikola job.
Nikola is clearly a front for Milton to transfer money into his personal life and has cashed out $70 million around the IPO and amended his share lock-up from 1-year to 180 days.
If he is fired, his equity awards immediately vest, and he is entitled to $20 million over two years.
Milton likely will never even start building a real car.
This is basically deception ranging from passing off fake products as real, staging of misleading videos, which require extensive premeditation, planning, and execution.
He has lied about the abilities of Nikola and the company simply has never even tried to build a car that the company is focused around.
The Tesla (TSLA) and Elon Musk narrative has made investors gullible to throw money at the next Tesla even if it is all a fake.
The money is literally funneled into Milton’s personal life allowing him to buy $50 million of Utah real estate.
The question now is what will GM do after they find out the truth about the matter?
GM might try to recoup the $2 billion (11% stake) if there is a possibility of reclaiming that capital, but if that is sunk money, they might choose to make the best out of a bad situation and elevate Nikola and make a real car out of it.
The only way to save this sinking chief is for GM to gut this fraudulent enterprise and put real engineers in Nikola with its real battery technology and leverage the brand of Nikola.
Nikola also has the support of the U.S. Central Bank that has propped up 40% of the S&P, are essentially zombie companies that cannot even service the interest on their debt.
Could this just be a $2 billion marketing cost for GM? It just might be.
In any case, there are many twists and turns coming up and GM might choose to write off $2 billion.
Unless GM decides to save Nikola, there is no new money coming in and that would be the time to short the stock.
The abomination that is the U.S. financial system encourages financial manipulation on an immense scale because the access to easy money has emboldened the conmen to come up with companies like this.
The insane reality is that CEO and Founder Trevor Milton was able to perpetuate this fraud for so long and cash out from investors who did not do any due diligence.
Nikola is now 7 years old and there are no signs of a car, only fake commercials of one.
The ball is squarely in GM’s court.
If GM cuts its losses, Nikola will never get another dime from any outside investor and is almost guaranteed that they will most likely not be able to produce a real car let alone a quality one with a golf club general manager, concrete repairman, and pinball repair guy at its helm.
I would be short GM – this strikes me as pitiful desperation. They have no chance of catching Tesla and over time, Nikola will fail unless rescued by outside technology, engineering, and management.
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“This thing fully functions and works.” – Said Founder and CEO of Nikola Trevor Milton at a Nikola show presenting a truck that didn’t function.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/trevor-milton.png254168Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2020-09-11 10:00:332020-09-11 11:03:39September 11, 2020 - Quote of the Day
Softbank’s CEO Masayoshi Son is playing with fire by snapping up more than $50 billion of call option exposure.
These call options are directly targeted at tech stocks which Son has an absolute fascination with.
The heavy purchasing of stock options has been the main catalyst in tech stock’s heading into bubble territory pushing prices up to outrageous highs.
Cornering the options market could lead to Softbank taking major write-downs if this high-risk strategy blows up in their face.
Remember that markets usually fall at a faster pace than vice-versa because of the nature of liquidity drying up and an avalanche of forced selling through stop-losses orders.
To add fuel to the fire, we have the U.S. Central Bank that is creating a false sense of security by buying junk bonds and supporting asset prices with broad-based asset purchases, and the lack of real opportunities in the tech market is forcing traders to leverage up multiple times just to spin a profit.
This all sounds eerily similar to Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM), doesn’t it?
Call option bets on technology stocks are now the narrative driving the broader market as we are unequivocally detached from reality at this point.
A worst-case scenario is a full-fledged rise in the systemic risk if a sell-off, which we are in the midst of, triggers a nasty and chaotic unwinding of bullish positions with indiscriminate selling.
The revealing of Softbank’s high stakes strategy appears to be the variable rocking the market.
Once these call options are deployed, Softbank is out of bullets and there is no incremental amount of capital to support the next leg up, meaning a “taking profits” pivot is the next order on the menu.
I believe regulators will take a look at the recent price action with Tesla at one point rising 75% in the past month alone. Are U.S. regulators prepared for the new normal to allow tech stocks like Amazon to rise 40% per day or drop 80% in one day? Markets cannot function with that level of volatility.
Clearly, Softbank’s heft in trading is moving markets and almost to the point of market manipulation which is cause for another concern.
The point is that this isn’t sustainable and the coming fall after unrealized gains are all taken off the table could slam the market with volatility so bad that it will make the 2008 recession look like a 1% pullback.
It is hard to know where this finally ends as the Fed is implicitly funding cheap money strategies that allow hedge funds to bet the ranch.
Now, this is bet the ranch and multiply that by ten. That’s the feeling I am getting from the price action lately.
Are we heading into hedge funds borrowing trillions of dollars and putting on 10s of trillions in highly leveraged directional bets?
That’s a scary thought.
If the brazenness gets to that level, it could finally be the straw that broke the camel's back for the U.S. financial system.
At the bare minimum, that day is certainly creeping closer.
One thing I can tell you is that Japanese investors are scared to death with these revelations.
Softbank is a massive conglomerate in Japan with many retail traders owning pieces of it.
Granted, Softbank could make it out of this with $10 billion in profits, but could also lose more than that and become a system risk in the Japanese financial system.
If it is found out that there are multiple hedge funds mimicking Softbank’s tens of billions call options strategy, we are headed into the eye of the storm and volatility is about to shoot through the roof.
Traders who aren’t used to 10% swings in daily pricing should sit this one out on the sidelines for the time being.
Yesterday alone, Softbank took a $10 billion loss on their positions.
Each day, Son’s nerves must be jangling.
Only he and his confidantes know the math of the positions, but if big losses mount, it could force him to cut losses if equity markets keep crashing.
The knock-on effects could be contagion around other parts of the global markets catalyzing yet another financial crisis on top of the current economic crisis.
Is the incremental trader willing to help out Son’s bet by buying the dip?
I would say the recent volatility should scare away traders in the short term boding ill for Softbank. The plain the vanilla buy the dip strategy is looking tenuous at best these days.
Where did this out of the blue trading strategy come from?
The company has recently indicated investing in U.S. markets: SoftBank announced in August that it would start a new unit for public investments with $555 million in capital.
The purchases are also notable given how much cash SoftBank has been raising this year. Last month, the company announced that it would sell more than one million shares in its Japanese mobile carrier affiliate SoftBank Corp., worth 1.47 trillion yen (nearly $14 billion) signaling this wave of call option buying has been in the works for a while.
That asset sale came on top of plans the firm announced in March to raise some 4.5 trillion yen ($42 billion) by selling assets.
SoftBank said last month that it believed it was "necessary to expand cash reserves ... to ensure flexible options to respond to changes in the market environment."
Prior to Monday's fall, SoftBank's stock was up about a third this year. It was a stunning turnaround for the company, which was embarrassed by a massive write-down on the disastrous WeWork bet last year.
This appears to be revenge and redemption wrapped into one.
In May, SoftBank reported an annual operating loss of 1.36 trillion yen ($12.7 billion) driven by massive write-downs in the Vision Fund.
What a world we live in!
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