US shares

[JamesMuenchen]

An article about some fast-growing US stocks that are outside the S&P500
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-fund ... -on-tesla/

Of those listed, I hold AYX (20% position) and ENPH (5% postition). Never looked at the others.

[onslow]

3M/MMM at historical high from a dividend yield perspective(3.7%), solid industrial with wide moat.

Been on my watchlist for a few years(down from $250 now $160), down like a lot of other US industrial stocks over last 6 months and heavily exposed to global trade sentiment so Coronavirus fears not helping.

Will start to look closer over coming days, not exactly "cheap" however may good value (unless you think we are heading into global recession anyway Coronavirus or not)

(but dont take my advice, I loaded up on GE at $16 in 2017!)

[JamesMuenchen]

Just getting round to taking at look at GOOG's results

For the first time they have broken out YouTube figures.
YouTube ads generated $15.15 billion in revenue in 2019 .... subscriptions such as YouTube TV and YouTube Premium, notably achieved a $3 billion revenue run rate in the fourth quarter,

Pretty amazing when compared to say BBC's £5bn or Sky's £10bn

[JamesMuenchen]

3) Roku. This company has just appeared on my radar due to my buying one of their products (to replace an old Amazon Fire Stick). Roku makes streaming media players, selling to consumers and Smart TV manufacturers. In June 2019 it was reported that in the first quarter of 2019, some 89% of TVs sold in America were Smart TVs with Roku's technology being in 37% of them.

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?s ... 1564056000

https://deadline.com/2019/06/rokus-lead ... 202638383/

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/ ... share.aspx

Roku is on the edge of my "circle of competence"; I'm happy to make a judgment on the media aspect of the company but less so with the technology. That's because all too often a seemingly dominant technology has been suddenly replaced by a competitor seemingly out of nowhere (at least to someone like me who doesn't follow the sector). That's why I generally avoid information technology focused companies. Streaming is clearly going to be the primary way of receiving video entertainment - the question is how much of this market can Roku take and can it become the dominant gateway?

I've been in Roku for some time and even longer in The Trade Desk (TTD) which is a similar CTV advertising play. (and also seen as a play on channels like Disney to some extent)

Very risky and volatile.

Fool.com would be the best place to find discussion of them

ROKU reported good results on Thursday:
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/02/ ... omise.aspx
Revenue in the fourth quarter soared 49% to $411.2 million, which brought full-year sales to $1.13 billion. Even though Roku is already the No. 1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., it's seeing active account growth accelerate. The company added a record 4.6 million active accounts in the fourth quarter, thanks to a growing stable of manufacturers that integrate Roku OS and strong demand over the holiday shopping season.
...

The launch of new streaming services also helped the business. Disney recently announced that Disney+ had already garnered 28.6 million subscribers since its Nov. 12 debut. Roku declined to provide specific details around any particular service but did acknowledge that it helped contribute to Disney+'s blockbuster launch. On the conference call with analysts, CEO Anthony Wood said, "One of the things Disney did is they really lean into the tools that we have available on our platform."

Not bad results, but not enough to shift the price.

I still hold, but still prefer The Trade Desk (TTD)

[JamesMuenchen]

An article about some fast-growing US stocks that are outside the S&P500
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-fund ... -on-tesla/

Of those listed, I hold AYX (20% position) and ENPH (5% postition). Never looked at the others.

Both AYX and ENPH have reported big earnings beats in the last week and popped up to new ATHs.
These are long term holds for me so I won't be trading any until the picture changes (there's no tax free trading in Germany so trying to trade ups and downs doesn't make sense to me)

I haven't added any of the other "Tesla like" stocks in the article, but I have added Virgin Galactic (SPCE).

SPCE has no revenues, so it's a pure speculation with fun money (1% position). I think it will also benefit from pent-up demand for shares in Musk's SpaceX, which isn't public yet. I got in at $19 and it's now at $30. Normally this would make me think about adding, but last time this happened with a fun money pot stock I did add and it then crashed pretty heavily. So I also won't do anything with SPCE until I think the picture has changed.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Looking around to see what US shares to buy in this here Covid-19 dip. I've not got any Visa (NYSE:V) and they look tempting right now. Any of you folks have any opinions on these guys?

thanks Matt

[ADrunkenMarcus]

Looking around to see what US shares to buy in this here Covid-19 dip. I've not got any Visa (NYSE:V) and they look tempting right now. Any of you folks have any opinions on these guys?

thanks Matt

I like Visa and Mastercard. I hold the latter and will top up when funds allow.

Best wishes

Mark.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Looking around to see what US shares to buy in this here Covid-19 dip. I've not got any Visa (NYSE:V) and they look tempting right now. Any of you folks have any opinions on these guys?

thanks Matt

I like Visa and Mastercard. I hold the latter and will top up when funds allow.

Best wishes

Mark.

Thanks Mark,

I'm looking at Visa right now. The SP has taken a COVID-19 related hit of about 15% of late (about $213 to $181). So perhaps it's a bargain. Of course the fall could be due to a mix of panic selling and of "predicted earnings decline" over next few months due to the virus reducing customer activity (e.g. restaurant + mall visits, travelling etc.) hence reduction in EPS due to less VISA card usage.

I summarised the last 5 quarters of EPS, and EPS is growing presumably Q2-2020 will be less impressive.



Furthermore even at $181, PE for TTM is still about 33.


so arguably not that much less than the average over the past few years.

But of course very good ROE, OM, and historic growth, do still make this an absolute spanker of a firm!

Matt

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Was just chatting about this (Visa) with the missus. I was arguing whether 15% fall in SP really means 15% fall in EPS. Hypothetically speaking of course . She argues not - if CV-19 reduces travelling activity, many families will be inclined to continue to spend the £££ saved (due to cancelling the hols), e.g. replace the suite, kitchen instead. Lots of this spending folk also do on their credit card apparently. (I wouldn't know I don't own one).

[ADrunkenMarcus]

We cannot predict the future.

I can imagine, though - and I imagine Mastercard and Visa will be much more valuable in 2040+. From my perspective, Mastercard is on a 20% discount to its recent peak and the dividend yield is up to almost 0.6%. I don't think it's 20% less valuable than it was a fortnight or so ago. And they can buy back shares, too.

Best wishes

Mark.

[monabri]

Anything else looking interesting?
MSFT?

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Anything else looking interesting?
MSFT?

Well more or less everything is down, so definitely time to bag quality firms, and MS is certainly one such. I just wish we'd more ISA allowance left.

We cashed out of one junk bond (PMO1) last week to generate more cash. It was still profitable for us to do that, I guess it yielded about 6% after costs for us for the 2 years we owned. Tomorrow we are selling IPF1 another junkie, which has also proved it's use. I know some folk here dis bonds, but for us these junk bonds have proven to be good cash reserves.

Matt

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

So are likely to see more falls in US stocks now

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-t ... 2020-03-03

what with the markets not being shocked back into life from the 0.5% rate cut? Well not as yet.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Its a shame the $/£ rate is so hopeless.

Can't understand why folks have ditched the £ so much now the cv19 crisis is building up steam. Surely we are coping better than the Yanks? What do people here think? Despite lots of US shares at tempting prices the FX rate is gross which is resulting in procrastination, at least on my behalf.

Matt

[ADrunkenMarcus]

Its a shame the $/£ rate is so hopeless.

It is, and I wish it was better as I am going to be buying USA securities in the near term. I am comforted by the fact that I am buying shares which will have fallen substantially, even if the exchange rate blunts that fall for me.

On the other hand, a majority of my portfolio is either foreign listed (such as MasterCard or Kone) or derives the majority of its revenue from overseas (Murray International, Unilever, AstraZeneca, Diageo, Spirax Sarco, Diploma...I could go on!) I suspect the weakness of the £ has been a factor in limiting my losses and keeping my total return in Sterling terms in positive territory:

Can't understand why folks have ditched the £ so much now the cv19 crisis is building up steam. Surely we are coping better than the Yanks? What do people here think? Despite lots of US shares at tempting prices the FX rate is gross which is resulting in procrastination, at least on my behalf.

I think the USA benefits from having a global reserve currency, whereas the UK does not have that luxury. While I don't want to bring politics into it in terms of the pros and cons of Brexit, I do think that uncertainty about future trading arrangements has been a factor as well, not to mention our substantial national debt. We can finance this while rates are low, but that will not always be the case.

best wishes

Mark.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Thanks Mark,

An interesting take on things - I share many of your thoughts. Perhaps I shouldn't fear the rate and I should mitigate this against possible stock price upside. For instance, if I assume I buy Visa at 1.15 $/£, and at some point the rate shifts to 1.40. Then I'm seeing 18% currency downside.

However, seeing as Visa have almost hit $140, and noting a recent peak of $214, then if I assume a recovery to $200 at some stage in the next year or two, I will see 43% stock price upside.

Perhaps I should make that order!

Matt

[monabri]

I wonder if it might be worth sitting on hands for a bit longer... is the US in full panic mode yet..."peak panic"?

[ADrunkenMarcus]

I wonder if it might be worth sitting on hands for a bit longer... is the US in full panic mode yet..."peak panic"?

I think the peak is yet to come!

Best wishes

Mark.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

People we probably think I'm being stupid with this train of thought. I'm using Visas SP in my hypothesis (though this could apply to many US stocks I guess). I'm then roughly calculating the CAGR of the SP growth through 5 year Obama year (Jan 2012-2017) about 26.6%. Then CAGR of growth thro DJT years of Jan 2017-2020 = 32.3%. Then I assume I purchase e.g. VISA @$140 at FX of $1.15/£ and assume future scenarios with a partial recovery under DJT to $200, and comparing to a scenario where DJT loses and we return to POTUS and economic style (tax and fed rates) more aligned with Obama. This would give my guess of a VISA SP of $166 forecasting in reverse to Jan 2020. I've lobbed these values in a sheet. I'm now curious as to worse case scenarios if the SPs of these firms doesn't recover at supercharged (low tax and rates) rates.



You may believe that my spreadsheet nonsense above is the work of a madman, and that Visa will recover to $200 and beyond and that £ won't ever hit $1.4 again. But I'm trying to understand my possible returns, completely omitting any CoronaVirus fears as such.

Matt

[flyer61]

Matt, have a look at this list for US ideas

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=22406