⁠Investing visuals
Where do you think we are right now?🔍 https://t.co/XjE0K8GoCW
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⁠Startup Archive
RT @foundertribune: "Blaming is the #1 enemy in destroying leadership" by John D. Rockefeller https://t.co/JlTqOYHOcz
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Harding Loevner on Applied Material $AMAT

Thesis: AMAT is positioned to capture growth in advanced semiconductor packaging, a critical shift as traditional transistor scaling nears its limits, offering strong potential at an attractive valuation.

(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/W97vLFXZIt
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⁠Startup Archive
JD Rockefeller on the importance of a culture without blame/excuses:

"The habit of blaming is like a swamp. Once you stumble and fall into it, you will lose your footing and direction, you will become unable to move and then fall into the predicament of hatred and frustration"

"Blaming is the #1 enemy in destroying leadership" by John D. Rockefeller https://t.co/JlTqOYHOcz - The Founders' Tribune
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⁠Startup Archive
RT @elonmusk: Couldn’t agree more

Steve Jobs on the most important job of a CEO

“The greatest people are self-managing. They don’t need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they’ll go figure out how to do it… What they need is a common vision, and that’s what leadership is. Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it, and getting consensus on a common vision.”

Steve continues:

“We wanted people who were insanely great at what they did… and the neatest thing that happens when you get a core group ten great people is that it becomes self-policing as to who they let into that group. So I consider the most important job of someone like myself is recruiting.” - Startup Archive
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⁠Startup Archive
Jeff Bezos: “Any high-performing organization has to have mechanisms and a culture that supports truth telling”

As Jeff explains:

“Truths often don’t want to be heard. Important truths can be uncomfortable, awkward, exhausting, challenging. They can make people defensive, even if that’s not the intent. But any high-performing organization—whether it’s a sports team, a business, a political organization, or activist group—has to have mechanisms and a culture that supports truth telling.”

And one of the things you have to do to support this kind of culture is talk about it:

“You have to talk about the fact that it takes energy to do that. And you have to remind people that it’s ok that it’s uncomfortable. You have to literally tell people: it’s not what we’re designed to do as humans… we mostly survive by being social animals—cordial and cooperative.”

He continues:

“You also want to set up your culture so that the most junior person can overrule the most senior person.”

In every meeting Jeff attends, he always speaks last:

“I know from experience that if I speak first, even very strong-willed, highly-intelligent participants of that meeting will [wonder if their ideas are incorrect because they’re different from Jeff’s]… Ideally you try to have the most junior go first and then go in order of seniority so that you can hear everyone’s opinion in an unfiltered way… Because we really do change our opinions—if somebody you really respect says something, it makes you change your mind a little.”

Jeff also points out that a lot of the most powerful truths aren’t always based on data—they turn out to be hunches, are based on anecdotes, or are intuition-based:

“You may feel yourself leaning in. It may resonate with a set of anecdotes you have. And then you may be able to say: ‘something about that feels right. Let’s go collect some data on that and try to see if we can know if it’s right.’”

Lastly he discusses fighting inherent biases. For example, most companies usually have an optimism bias. As Jeff explains:

“If there are two interpretations of a new set of data—one is happy and the other is unhappy—it’s a little dangerous to jump to the conclusion that the happy interpretation is right. You may want to compensate for that human bias of trying to find the silver lining and say ‘that might be good, but I’m gonna go with it’s bad for now until we’re sure.’”

Video source: @lexfridman (2023)
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⁠Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
A sober valuation analysis on $MELI 🧘🏽‍♂️

•NTM P/E Ratio: 48.07x
•1-Year Mean: 48.02x

As you can see, $MELI appears to be trading near fair value

Going forward, investors can receive roughly the same in earnings per share 🧠***

Before we get into valuation, let’s take a look at why $MELI is a great business

BALANCE SHEET✅
•Cash & Short-Term Inv: $6.67B
•Long-Term Debt: $3.04B

$MELI has a strong balance sheet, an ok BB+ S&P Credit Rating & 20x FFO Interest Coverage

RETURN ON CAPITAL🆗➡️✅
•2019: (4.8%)
•2020: 3.7%
•2021: 8.1%
•2022: 14.2%
•2023: 25.3%
•LTM: 20.1%

RETURN ON EQUITY🆗➡️✅
•2019: (14.2%)
•2020: (0.1%)
•2021: 5.2%
•2022: 28.7%
•2023: 40.3%
•LTM: 42.6%

$MELI has strong and improved return metrics, highlighting the financial efficiency of the business

REVENUES✅
•2018: $1.44B
•2023: $14.47B
•CAGR: 58.64%

FREE CASH FLOW✅
•2018: $133.35M
•2023: $4.63B
•CAGR: 203.29%

NORMALIZED EPS✅
•2018: (0.82)
•2023: (22.84)

SHARE BUYBACKS❌
•2013 Shares Outstanding: 44.53M
•LTM Shares Outstanding: 51.28M

MARGINS🆗➡️✅
•LTM Gross Margins: 52.5%
•LTM Operating Margins: 11.4%
•LTM Net Income Margins: 7.8%

***NOW TO VALUATION 🧠

As stated above, investors can expect to receive roughly the same in EPS

Using Benjamin Graham’s 2G rule of thumb, $MELI has to grow earnings at a 24.04% CAGR over the next several years to justify its valuation

Today, analysts anticipate 2025 - 2026 EPS growth over the next few years to be more than the (24.04%) required growth rate:

2024E: $33.87 (48.3% YoY) *FY Dec

2025E: $46.86 (38.3% YoY)
2026E: $62.73 (33.9% YoY)

$MELI has an ok track record of meeting analyst estimates ~2 years out, but let’s assume $MELI ends 2026 with $62.73 in EPS & see its CAGR potential assuming different multiples

42x P/E: $2,634.66💵 … ~17.1% CAGR

40x P/E: $2,509.20💵 … ~14.4% CAGR

38x P/E: $2,383.74💵 … ~11.8% CAGR

36x P/E: $2,258.28💵 … ~9.0% CAGR

As you can see, $MELI appears to have attractive return potential IF we assume >38x earnings (a multiple justified by its growth rate & moat)

$MELI boasts an expansive growth trajectory, fueled by powerful network effects that should drive sustained momentum

Key factors contributing to its promising outlook include 🔑

1. Margin expansion

2. Unparalleled access to Latin America's burgeoning economy

3. Network effects that produce self-reinforcing dynamics ensuring long-term competitiveness, among other things

Those buying $MELI today at $1872💵 are buying it for a fair price, with little margin of safety — however, these growth rates have to be revised down substantially for $MELI to miss the mark, even if the company grows earnings at 25% CAGR over the next 5 years, shareholders will likely end up with a decent return

I’d consider $MELI an exceptional buy closer to $1,700💵 (~9% below today’s price) where I can reasonably expect ~14% CAGR while assuming a 36x end multiple, ensuring some margin of safety

#stocks #investing
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𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄‼️: 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞. 𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥® 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬.

𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐛𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲.
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Harding Loevner on HDFC Bank $HDB US

Thesis: HDFC's smooth merger integration, attractive pricing, and disciplined lending practices set it up for a strong rebound, with significant growth potential compared to overvalued competitors like ICICI.

(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/MdUK6pZeNq
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⁠Ahmad Jivraj
RT @mrjivraj: here is another practical way to think about it
age 17 => get a summer job => make $5K => put into ROTH IRA => 7% return => it becomes $128K at 65

age 18 => get another summer job => make another $5K => at 7% return, becomes $120K at 65

age 19 => get another summer job => make $5K => at 7% return, becomes $112K at 65

age 20 => make $5K => at 7% return, becomes $105K

age 21 => $5K at 7% return, becomes $98K

age 22 => $5K at 7% return, becomes $92K

That's $527K

Now, graduate and get a real job

age 23 => $6K at 7% return, becomes $103K
age 24 => $7K at 7% return, becomes $112K
age 25 => $8K at 7% return, becomes $120K
age 26 => $8K at 7% return, becomes $112K
age 27 => $8K at 7% return, becomes $104K

that's almost $1.1 million
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⁠Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy. Profit from folly rather than participate in it.”

— Warren Buffett 🗣️

Takeaways 📚

1. Separate noise from signal

2. Capitalize on irrational market behavior

3. Stay calm and patient

#stocks #investing
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