📝 LTP Notes 001: Elliott bought SBUX, Consider LULU, Dependence Between Rates and Stocks, and Others
Some investing notes that may help you gain insights or make long-term decisions.
☕ Elliott Investment Management Bought SBUX
Activist investor Elliott Investment Management has built a sizable position in Starbucks and has been discussing ways of improving the coffee chain's stock performance. SBUX stock price, which has lost 23% over the last 52 weeks, jumped nearly 7% to end trading at $79.27 on Friday.
Elliott's investment is significant because the firm has a track record of pushing for strategic changes in large companies, often leading to improved performance and increased shareholder value.
I wrote an analysis on SBUX a few days ago. Probably Elliott read us 😉
🏃♀️ Once Again, Why You Should Consider LULU
Some takeaways in addition to my analysis of Lulemon:
» A rising Canadian brand with promising international ambitions.
» The CEO seems quite analytical and long-term oriented. Power of 3 was a huge milestone and solid proof of execution.
» Positive NPS confirms the customer centricity that transpires by analyzing the company’s effort and initiatives to retain them.
» 50%-50%: the geographical breakdown - North America vs Rest of the World - of Sales that Management considers possible for the years to come.
» An excellent balance sheet.
» Margins here are simply amazing.
🪙 Dependence Between Rates and Stocks
The relationship between the Federal Funds Rate (blue line) and major S&P 500 drawdowns (red bars) over time. Significant market declines, such as drops of -56.87% and -44.67%, almost always coincide with cuts in the Fed Funds Rate. Read my TLT analysis.
💲 Global Reserves Breakdown 2023
The chart displays the composition of global international reserves for 2023, categorized by foreign exchange and gold. The US Dollar dominates with 48.10% of reserves, followed by gold at 17.60% and the Euro at 16.50%. Other currencies like Yen, Sterling, and Renminbi hold smaller shares.
🤖 Tech Titans' R&D Race
A chart of R&D spending by the top most valuable companies on Nasdaq for the last 12 months. The five biggest tech companies - Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft - collectively spent $229 billion on R&D. Amazon leads with $85.6 billion, followed by Alphabet at $45.9 billion. The chart also shows R&D spend as a percentage of gross profit, with Meta having the highest at 34%.
The data highlights the significant investment these tech giants make in innovation and future development.
📱 Social Media's Screen Time Surge
The chart illustrates the increasing trend of video consumption across major social media platforms from 2022 to 2024. It shows the average daily video watch time in hours for users of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Discord.
Key observations:
TikTok leads with the highest watch time, reaching 2.48 hours per day in 2024.
Instagram (META) closely follows TikTok, with 2.46 hours in 2024.
All platforms show an upward trend in watch time over the three years, except YouTube (GOOGL), which slightly decreased from 2023 to 2024.
Discord has the lowest watch time but still shows growth, reaching 0.93 hours in 2024.
🐦⬛ CrowdStrike Searches Skyrocket
The graph depicts Google search volumes for CrowdStrike, Donald Trump, and Taylor Swift over 24 hours. CrowdStrike experiences a dramatic spike. It was due to an accident with Windows (MSFT).
But the most interesting thing is that many companies use the services of CRWD. Long-term buy? 😉