New management with a new veneer to the content strategy and a cyclical recovery in UK TV advertising have all encouraged markets to give ITV the benefit of the doubt that this time it can manage the transition from distribution monopolist to a more balanced content origination and distribution business, albeit in a considerably more […]
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WPP’s annual digital investor day provided Sir Martin Sorrell another opportunity to show off his digital wares as well as take some entertaining swings at rivals; particularly the “plonkers†who had recently been over-paying (ie out-bidding WPP) for digital assets and particularly those in Brazil. Comment est-ce qu’on dit ça en Francaise Maurice? At […]
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We are all guilty of it, but it is probably the single most dangerous investment sin. Perhaps it is part of our social evolution to conform. A sort of “Eat shit 17 quadrillion flies can’t be wrongâ€. With regards to financial markets you may have seen the same shit, but given a pseudo- intellectual […]
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Finding a marriage of ‘equals’ with Omnicom was not to its tastes, Publicis is back to what it does best; hoovering up smaller digital marketing operations. When you are not a Wonga client and can borrow at only 2.6%, then buying in a business on an operating profit yield of approx 5.5% before synergies and […]
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Was the Friday rebound in equity markets another BTFD opportunity, or a possible suckers rally? Certainly, the wall of central bank liquidity over the past five years have reduced the market’s pricing mechanism to little more than a pavlovian response to the next turn of the central tap and where bad news can be good […]
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Ryanair is still packing in the passengers (Sept +5% with load +5ppts to 90% vs +7.5%/+2.5ppts respectively for EasyJet), although with the Air France strike settled and the end of the summer holiday season I would expect the Oct traffic figures to be a little less supportive. The stock is still my preferred one in […]
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For an arbitrage opportunity to exist, asset classes need to be fungible (deliverable against each other), so anyone selling you a scheme to “arbitrage” an apparent pricing disparity between related, but non-fungible, assets maybe selling you a dud. When I see investor research by banks, who should know better, promoting “the Yahoo arbitrage trade” […]
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I am surprised! Having cleaned up the reported numbers a little (eg including stock comp and intangible amortisation – excl goodwill), and applied a broadly average growth discount trend, the Alibaba NPV on the WYT growth discount model comes within 5% of the post IPO price – nb this already adjusts for forward valuation horizon […]
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