Eq: Tech
(San Francisco)
No matter how good you may feel about stock indexes being back near all-time highs, one fact cannot be ignored: the market seems to be heavily overweight on the five largest tech stocks— Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon (the new acronym, named by Goldman is FAAMG). These stocks have been powering the market, but the whole situation feels like past peaks where their outperformance could not go on forever. Concentration in the S&P 500 is now at its highest in decades, with those five names accounting for 22% of the total capitalization, up from just 16% a year ago. According to Barron’s “Simple arithmetic limits the continued outperformance of the biggest names, the Goldman team observes, because many portfolio managers have 5% limits on holdings of any given stock. The strategists’ analysis shows that the average large-cap mutual fund already has a 5% position in Microsoft and about 4% positions in the other big four names.”.
FINSUM: It seems these stocks are reaching their institutional allocation limits, which mans retail needs to power them higher. The whole situation feels ripe for a correction.
(New York)
If Biden wins the presidency and Democrats take the House and Senate, tax hikes look inevitable. Biden is already publicly planning for them, and the way the polls are going, advisors would be wise to give the eventuality some thought. Even if Democrats don’t win the Senate, there may still be a tax overhaul. With that in mind, these are the stocks likely to be the hardest hit by a Democrat-led tax package. Based on Biden’s plan, it looks like a 10% rise in overall corporate taxes. Zion Research is leading the charge into the analysis, and here is an overview (quote from Barron’s): “Zion notes that 117 companies [in the] S&P 500 have over $100 million in net income that had cash tax rates less than 15%. Biden’s plan for a 15% minimum tax on book income would mean that group combined pays another $37 billion in taxes. According to Zion, nearly half of that would come from five companies: Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK.B), Intel (INTC), AT&T (T), Duke Energy (DUK) and Amazon.com (AMZN). Biden called out Amazon specifically during his speech, when he said, ‘The days of Amazon paying nothing in federal income tax will be over’”.
FINSUM: This is quite astute analysis as these are stocks that are benefiting in a very significant way from the current tax regime. Amazon seems to have a big risk here that is not properly understood by the market.
(San Francisco)
For a lot of people, BlackRock brings two things to mind: fixed income and ETFs. Therefore, the firm making a bold call about a handful of single name stocks comes as somewhat of a surprise. However, BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world and is also a leader in equities. The call they are making today is that big tech companies are looking strong and likely to keep seeing price expansion. On the one hand, this is a very easy call to make given tech stocks have been soaring, but on the other, it is somewhat of an interesting and risky call because many fear FAANGs can really only go down in the short-term. BlackRock says that the cash flow producing abilities of tech companies (a factor proven to be vital in this downturn) will be critical to their continued success.
FINSUM: There might be some short-term tailwinds, but in our view, big tech companies are going to keep moving higher because this crisis has created a huge opportunity to grab market share as more of life moves online.
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(San Francisco)
Facebook’s stock has taken a hit lately, and with good reason. Several large businesses have announced boycotts of Facebook because of their poor record on hate speech. A recent survey found a third of top US brands are planning to suspend their social media spending soon. That spending is of course not just limited to Facebook, but Twitter, and others as well. According to the World Federation of Advertiser’s, a trade body covering 90% of the world’s ad spending, the survey of 58 WFA members who account for $90 bn of ad spend worldwide found that combined with the one-third just mentioned, an additional 41% were still undecided about whether to pause campaigns. According to the CEO of the WFA, “In all candour, it feels like a turning point … What’s striking is the number of brands who are saying they are reassessing their longer-term media allocation strategies and demanding structural changes in the way platforms address racial intolerance, hate speech and harmful content”.
FINSUM: Hard to tell if this could be a sustained movement that could really hurt Facebook and other social media companies, or this will just be a few-week flash in the pan that will make no real difference. Our view is that the social media companies will respond strongly now that it is threatening revenue, and the advertisers will quickly fall back in line because the social media platforms are the bedrock of current customer acquisition strategies.
(New York)
We have been saying this for months now, but Wall Street is also coming around to the idea: the COVID lockdown was ultimately going to be very bullish for ecommerce and the social media companies with which they are inextricably linked. According to Wedbush, the COVID lockdown has permanently changed shopping habits, and ecommerce’s share of total retail sales will maintain the big jump it saw over the last few months. With that in mind, here are six stocks to consider: Wix.com, GoDaddy, Shopify, eBay, Etsy, and Pinterest.
FINSUM: Just like work habits, people’s buying habits have changed, and they are likely to stay that way. That is a big victory for retailers who were winning the ecommerce race, those who support ecommerce (e.g. Shopify), and social media companies who benefit from increased advertising.
(Seattle)
One of the things that makes Amazon such an extraordinary company is that it is always on the look out for the next great business opportunity, and always seems to be one step ahead in executing it. AWS anyone? Now the champion of Seattle may be eyeing a new target—ride-sharing. Amazon is considering the acquisition of Zoox, a well-known autonomous vehicle company. If it were to acquire Zoox, it would immediately be in competition with Uber and Lyft in the soon-to-be autonomous ride-sharing market.
FINSUM: We assume Amazon also has some yet-to-be-understood purpose for this beyond just competing with Uber and Lyft. For instance, autonomous delivery/logistics vehicles?