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May 8, 2019
With all the attention that new issues are getting over the past several months, it is interesting to see that a privately held fast food chain, Chick-Fil-A, has now become the third largest restaurant chain, only behind McDonalds and Starbucks. Founded by the late S. Truett Cathy, the chain is known for not being open on Sundays, Thanksgiving and Christmas but still has led the fast food industry in average sales per restaurant since 2010. Keeping with their private company roots, Chick-Fil-A has partnered with Door Dash for delivery services, but we wonder how long before IPO darling Uber, with their Uber Eats division, partners with them as delivery represents almost 13% of their current sales. Eat Mor Chikin!
April 25, 2019
Fourteen years ago on April 23rd, 2005, the first YouTube video, “Me at the Zoo”, was posted. A year later, YouTube was purchased by Google for a little over $1 billion dollars. Today, YouTube has over a billion users (a third of all people on the internet), and every minute more than 100 hours of video is being uploaded. Talk about the incredible amount of video data and intelligence being processed by Google all day long and talk about the investment opportunity that this represents. Totally, like wow man!
April 10, 2019
Several weeks ago traders took notice of the inverted yield curve (short term rates higher than longer term rates). Their concern is that every recession since the 1960’s was preceded by this inversion. But this may be a bull inversion as a more accommodative Fed and historic low rates around the world have kept the cost of money low, so the bull market continues, until it doesn’t. The other interesting inversion is the large number of unicorn IPO’s that are coming out in 2019, possibly a record number, and the huge amount of losses these companies are experiencing. In the past, private companies would create a product, get to market, have some profits and then IPO to access growth capital For this herd of unicorns, future profits will be the story for Wall Street to tell.
March 22, 2019
We all know them, the late night TV ads that spur us on to buy the golf chipper that is “guaranteed” to get you out of the sand or the “guaranteed” weight loss pill that will change your life with three easy payments. What was interesting about the recent school admissions scandal was the way Rick Singer, college placement specialist to the elite, sold the idea of “guaranteed” admission to your school of choice as opposed to putting the child in the best position to be admitted. Guaranteed, on top of a tax write-off for the bribes, pushed these elites to make gross moral choices and now the wrath of the nation and the legal system. When investing, beware of the guarantees, think Madoff and never a losing month, or other Ponzi type schemes, because as they are finding out in Hollywood, the fact is more powerful than the fiction.
March 13, 2019
This week Forbes named Kylie Jenner the youngest billionaire ever as she achieved this feat at the mere age of 21. The youngest of the provocative Kardashian clan, the new mother has been promoting her make-up line since she was 13 and with 125 million followers on Instagram, she has harnessed the exponential power of social media. Congratulations to Kylie, who had to grow up in what can only be described as an “off-beat” family that was broadcast live for the world to see. As for compounding, at 8% a year, Kylie will hit $25 billion by the time she is her mother’s age of 63 without adding another dollar. Go girl.
