“10 to 20 years out, driving your car will be viewed as equivalently immoral as smoking cigarettes around other people is today.” – Said American Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen
“10 to 20 years out, driving your car will be viewed as equivalently immoral as smoking cigarettes around other people is today.” – Said American Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
June 17, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE FLIGHT PATH OF UBER)
(UBER)
If you want a bull out of the gate type technology stock, those are few and far between at this point in the late economic cycle.
There's another deep-lying value out there and a company who promises the stars and the moon is Uber who announced some eye-opening developments.
Uber Elevate, a division of Uber developing urban flight ridesharing, will have to hold on to its ridesharing business serviced by combustion engine-based cars for quite a while before the company can literally take flight.
This is the type of investment that used to only be reserved for venture capitalists, but Uber going public has given the average American a chance at staking out and holding one of the most controversial yet forward-thinking tech companies in the world.
If Uber can get this up and running, the underlying stock promises to become a ten bagger.
The United States-based subsidiary of the Embraer, EmbraerX, focuses on the development of disruptive businesses.
EmbraerX fundamental pillar is the formation of the future experience of air transport users.
Last week turned heads by debuting a small electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle that should transform the future for Uber and other ridesharing companies.
The annual Uber Elevate conference in Washington, D.C. offered a glimmer of hope for Uber Elevate, the company is hellbent on realizing the holy grail of ridesharing transport transforming into autonomous flying vehicles.
A business model concocted with this input would pay dividends for a company who is doling out subsidies to gas-guzzling drivers on the road to service.
Yes, this is the future, but the future is here sooner than you think.
The EmbraerX eVTOL will only be able to handle a few passengers from the get-go.
Unfortunately, autonomous piloting will integrate into the process slowly.
The goal is for the vehicle to be absolutely autonomous according to the manufacturer aligning with Uber’s much-prophesized aim of going fully autonomous.
Dreams aside, there appear to be many technical issues with executing this transformation such as how will a new generation of flying Ubers prevent nonstop collisions above a city?
Uber has buddied up with an army of air traffic controllers, academics, pilots and industry experts to study this issue, while EmbraerX has proposed a pragmatic, simple and robust urban air space design to allow more aircraft to operate in urban environments.
Uber’s flying division plans on rolling out their service by 2023 which is an ambitious target, to say the least.
EmbraerX is partnering up with Uber to try and make this happen.
The locations of Los Angeles and Dallas have been pinpointed as places they plan to demonstrate flight capabilities next year.
The timeline is excruciating tight if Uber plans to get all their ducks in a row and make this a reality.
Uber has toyed with other launch locations such as Brazil, France, and India.
Other aircraft manufacturers are in the mix as well allowing Uber to diversify the risk in case EmbraerX can’t deliver the goods.
Similar air products are being crafted by Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing subsidiary, Bell and Karen Aircraft, and a Slovenian manufacturer named Pipistrel Vertical Solutions.
The entire premise behind the aerial ridesharing involves delivering a network of airports.
It will not morph into a door to-door service because a lack of capabilities on last mile deliverability that gas-based cars possess.
The concept of skyports or skystations have been bandied around and will theoretically force passengers to find their way to these launch stations to take advantage of aerial capabilities.
Uber could deliver a 2-1 service with road-based cars delivering the passengers to the sky stations all through the Uber app and a receiving a windfall of 100% of the transport revenues.
Uber is collaborating with renowned architectural and engineering firms on that piece of the project to solve complex challenges.
The sky stations must be built around commercial and retail hubs making this problem even more frustrating because the lack of infrastructure and crowded nature of these tight spaces means this project absolutely cannot fail.
Can you imagine a failed blighted sky port hanging above the retail and tourist mecca of Times Square in Manhattan?
Then there is the issue of these sky ports being monumental eye sores ruining picturesque skylines that many people hold dear to their heart.
The San Francisco skyline and the property owners with panoramic views would lose enormous property value if they were holed up next to an Uber aerial flight route.
The company has brainstormed around building on top of existing under-utilized urban structures like parking garages or even big box malls.
Some of the designers see them as providing not just takeoff and landing platforms for eVTOL vehicles, but an all-inclusive mix of retail, entertainment, and commercial with fitness clubs, supermarkets, and fine dining integrated into the concept similar to Tokyo subway stations.
In terms of time, the benefits would be compelling with flights able to cut commutes down from 2 hours to 15 minutes.
This type of time savings is applicable to megacities such as New York and the San Francisco Bay Area where many employees reside in outer suburbs to only commute into the heart of the city with their cars.
Shared flights would mitigate traffic on the ground giving a 3D solution to the massive traffic problem megacities face.
Meanwhile, as a way of dipping its toe into the waters of urban aerial transportation, Uber is due to launch a new service in New York City on July 9 that relies on an existing technology: helicopters.
The new Uber Copter service is by way of the Uber app allowing customers to call for helicopter rides between lower Manhattan and JFK Airport, pegged at a price of about $250 per person.
Times will be reserved for the afternoon rush hours on weekdays – and only for Platinum and Diamond members of the Uber Rewards loyalty program.
Newark-based HeliFlite will operate this part of Uber offering 5 seats per helicopter.
This test roll-out will give Uber valuable insight into the pitfalls of running an aerial transport network and long-term feasibility of it.
What does this mean for Uber?
Part of accessing the public markets was to supercharge their Uber Elevate division.
It is happening.
The company will be able to access the debt market to fund its deep-lying value divisions much like Google’s autonomous driving division Waymo has been financed by its parent company Alphabet.
Regulatory headwinds still represent a doozy of a thorn in its side.
There is a real chance of Uber Elevate being ready before the government is ready to allow them to flood the sky with aircrafts, and a 2-year delay suddenly grounding the planes with shareholders footing the costs will sap the momentum.
Facebook has grown uncontrollably for over a decade and the government still can’t get their finger out and figure out what to do.
A decade hiatus would be catastrophic for Uber Elevate as flight crashes have a more graphic consequence than personal data being hijacked.
I give Uber a 40% chance of creating a full-fledged, up and running aerial ridesharing service by 2023.
“As we move over to more of a mobile device-centric world... I think the interaction model with devices is going to be much more voice-based.” – Said CEO of Uber Dara Khosrowshahi
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
June 13, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE TRADE WAR MOVES DOWN MARKET)
(DOCU), (PSTG), (ZUO), (MSFT), (PYPL), (ADBE)
To understand the consequences of the global trade war, just take a look at the second-tier software companies.
There has been softness in the latest earnings reports and guidance signaling a lukewarm upcoming summer.
The best-case scenario is the likes of DocuSign (DOCU) and Zuora (ZUO) rallying into the end of the year.
That is hardly a given considering the global turmoil has shifted supply chains in every which way as well as denting overall demand.
Cloud-based companies have seen meaningful weakness this earnings season, even some of them absorbing heavy losses in the wake of their quarterly results, but analysts aren’t ready to write off this industry yet.
Referencing the latest industry survey, 20 software companies reported results in the last month, and of those, only six saw a positive response in their stock prices.
DocuSign and Pure Storage (PSTG) were among names that got clobbered, along with cloud-computing plays like Cloudera Inc., Nutanix Inc., Box Inc., and Pivotal Software Inc.
The current malaise in software is due to higher valuations and macroeconomic issues which subsequently elevates uncertainty.
There is no reason to go hysterical over this, and in no way, shape, or form, does this signal an imminent implosion of cloud companies, any incremental caution may be reversible if macro indicators and sentiment rebound.
And this rebound can be swift once all the stars align together.
Adding to the comfort is that some of the sharp drawdowns were company-specific reasons.
MongoDB Inc. or Zscaler Inc., were coming off strong year-to-date advances in their shares and it was time to take profits before the next upward explosion.
Cybersecurity company Zscaler, is appropriately accounting for outperformance and have already been crushing higher than normal expectations.
DocuSign eclipsed expectations on some metrics but disappointed on others, such as billings growth.
This disappointing miss punished the company with a drop of 15% in the pre-market session, as DocuSign grew sales by 27%, a lower rate than in previous quarters.
Management blamed the poor performance to an elongated sales cycle.
Bulls were hoping for a beat-and-raise quarter and instead got in-line numbers with some soft spots around the periphery.
Investors aren’t in a charitable mood and the sensitive mood around geopolitics has made investors more agitated with a shorter leash.
There was a tone of a broader deceleration in software demand prompting stronger names to get comingled together, but the bulk of this negative price action has been overdone.
Even further down the pecking order, results from smaller cloud firms have pointed to more fundamental issues, and these stocks have emerged as a particularly weak sub-sector.
A number of these companies reigned in their forecasts, a trend that has buttressed analyst caution over the group.
Considering that many companies have labored and there exist clear narrative similarities, it’s hard not to surmise that some real systemic pains in infrastructure exist.
Many in the industry are acutely aware of the growing chorus of companies blaming competition or poor sales execution.
Lower growth rates are effectively the predominant reason for lower stock prices in this group of cloud companies.
On the flipside of this weaker cloud growth are the heavy hitters who are throwing around their weight getting through largely unscathed.
If any of these bigger cloud companies can fuse together a business model with no China exposure, then shares are likely stable to upward trending.
A company like Adobe (ADBE) is a perfect company to look at with an unpretentious yet steady growth rate and wildly successful products.
If we were to look at more growth-based companies with larger scale, then PayPal (PYPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) epitomize the type of cloud companies that are thriving in this environment and if geopolitics subsides, take on another 10% in sales.
Not only is the weather hot in the summer, but the anti-trust regulators are turning up the heat on certain tech companies on anti-trust concerns.
This could be a time to wait out those stocks and there could be another move to the upside if regulation is weaker than expected.
“There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.” – Said Founder and CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
June 12, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(STITCHING YOUR WAY TO PROFITS)
(SFIX)
If you are looking for an opportunistic trade in an up and coming tech growth story, then look no further than Stitch Fix (SFIX) which is a product of an algorithm meeting a stylish wardrobe.
This online personal styling service offering denim, dresses, blouses, skirts, shoes, jewelry, and handbags for men, women, and kids under the Stitch Fix brand is a first of a kind.
This company is a technology company because the underlying business deploys data science to work with personal stylists and machine learning (AI) for personalized recommendation.
Let’s take a peek at how they do it.
They send individually picked clothing and accessories items for a one-time styling fee.
Customers fill out a survey online about their style preferences then an in-house stylist chooses five items to send to the customer.
Human stylists pick items according to a customer's survey answers and any access the customer gives them to their social media profiles such as Facebook.
The customer schedules a date to receive the shipments, which is referred to as a "Fix".
Once the shipment is received, the customer has three days to choose to keep the items or partially return the order or send it all back.
If the customer keeps at least one item, the initial styling fee is credited towards the cost of the item.
In addition to the styling fee being credited, if the customer decides to keep all five items, the customer receives 25% off the total cost of the items.
Customers choose the shipping schedule, such as every two weeks, once a month, or every two months.
The company also supports integration with Pinterest boards, allowing customers to add photos of fashion looks that appeal to them.
Developing around the importance of client relationships is the heart and soul of the business.
There were many financial highlights in the second quarter that provide more color on how Stitch Fix manages the business and continue to drive this sustainable long-term growth.
In the second quarter, they generated a net revenue of $370 million blowing away guidance and representing 25% year-over-year growth.
The 25% growth year-over-year is exceeding the believed guidance of 22% to 24% growth.
Q2 gross margin was 44.1%, 110 basis points higher than last year's Q2 reflecting a higher sell-through rate combined with lower inventory reserve expense and lower clearance activity year-over-year.
Stitch Fix delivered $12 million in net income and $19.2 million in adjusted EBITDA which also exceeded guidance.
The firm grew active client count to 3 million as of the first month of 2019, an 18% increase year-over-year.
These results show the deep commitment to delivering long term growth while making significant investments in future categories and capabilities.
More proof of the robust growth projections can be understood with healthy projections for the upcoming quarter, for Q3 2019, Stitch Fix expects net revenue between $388 million and $398 million dollars, representing growth of 22% to 26% year-over-year.
The last quarter of 2019 should be even better with revenue growth accelerating, for Q4 2019 specifically, projected net revenues is between $410 million to $430 million, representing growth of 29% to 35% year-over-year.
If the company can hit the upper limit of growth and register 35% year-over-year growth in Q4, then shares will easily surpass $40 barring any black swan catastrophes from the geopolitical scene.
Marketing is another lever Stitch Fix made use of.
In the past, for instance, they chose to market more aggressively with men or less with plus-sized clients depending on the available inventory at each product group.
The sales and marketing provide Stitch Fix with the flexibility to manage growth and ensure they can deliver a positive experience to all clients.
Putting this framework into context, in Q2, Stitch Fix had higher than anticipated demand from existing clients.
This was proven by the year-to-date repeat rate of 88%.
As a result of this increased demand, repeat clients is good for the inventory in the quarter.
Hammering down on that technology advantage that is turning out to be the difference maker, Stitch Fix launched a new inventory optimization algorithm to more effectively allocate inventory across the customer base.
Historically, Stitch Fix has optimized inventory allocation one client at a time based on which client was first in line.
But this new algorithm gauges the preferences of a broader universe of clients in the queue, to determine which inventory should be made available to Style as they start for each client.
This guarantees suitable inventory to meet each client's style preferences regardless of the client's position and our style in queue.
Early signs from this new algorithm demonstrated increases in client satisfaction and engagement.
Stitch Fix believes this superior algorithm will enable them to effectively serve a growing client base over time while also driving efficiencies across styling, inventory management and operation.
Stitch Fix is also expanding abroad with a local U.K. team and investing in the ground operations.
The company is leveraging data science capabilities to serve the unique preferences of UK fashion.
They are on track for a Q4 U.K. launch and hope to capitalize on an expanded U.S. and UK addressable market of over $430 billion.
The latest financials make it hard to slap on anything other than a buy rating.
As many tech companies are experiencing a drain of decelerating growth to their models, Stitch Fix is still in their sweet spot and shares should reap the rewards for this type of execution.
Giving what the market wants is never a bad idea.
“As a consumer, you don't want to choose from a million pairs of jeans. You just want the one pair that's going to fit you and look great on you.” – Said Founder and CEO of Stich Fix Katrina Lake
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