"The Millennial Consumer Index" - My picks for a DJIA style 30 stock Index with Co.'s that best serve that demographic.

Fellow Millennials, What would be some of your picks?😀
@richard_chu97 @saxena_puru @FromValue @TMFJMo @dhaval_kotecha @adventuresinfi @reshoftc @BrianFeroldi

My criteria & list is
✔️US Consumer centric
✔️No B2B stuff (unless end-user uses it for non-Business reasons also)

This is just a Fun-Friday exercise. So don't take it too seriously and ask me why your fav co isn't there. Just add yours in the comments. 😂

Picks ⬇️⬇️
E-Commerce : $AMZN $ETSY $W $LULU $CHWY
Entertainment : $GOOG $NFLX $SPOT $ROKU
Social : $FB $SNAP $PINS
Finance : $SQ $PYPL $LMND
Food/Beverage : $CMG $SBUX $DPZ $CELH
Online Services : $MTCH $ZM $DOCU $TDOC $RDFN $FVRR
Life style : $AAPL $TSLA $PTON $ABNB $UBER

Let's keep aside the discussions about recent hype or over-valuations for any of these Co's.

This thread is about which Companies (in my Portfolio/Watchlist/Universe) are doing an awesome job of serving/engaging the Millennial Consumers (in US).

The intersection of Technology, Demographic, and Consumer (behavior) trends are incredibly powerful.⚡️

We often over-estimate what can happen in the short-term (hype) and under-estimate what can happen in 1-2 decades (strong trends).

Possibly the greatest NBER abstract ever written.

The Great Man theory of history.... turns out to have some pretty strong statistical support.

School closures had NO EFFECT (precise null!) on socioeconomic outcomes and future schooling behavior during the 1918 pandemic.

The authors note that school closures were not as long back then.

But also school calendars were far shorter. So idk how it shakes out.

Informing men about the odds their wife will die in childbirth reduces fertility, increases marital satisfaction, and reduces mismatch in fertility preferences within couples (in Zambia).

What are prices?

A layperson’s guide to understanding charts and volatility.
1/

It’s an observable fact that price has nothing to do with value. Perhaps over the long term these two converge, but in the short term it makes no sense that the price of, say, soybeans would change 3-4% from day to day.

So what’s happening?
2/

You’ve probably heard people say “markets are forward looking” and that’s sorta true, I guess.

But that doesn’t mean they’re any good at it.

It might be better to say “markets consistently attempt to look forward” because that would be more illustrative of what’s happening.
3/

When a day-over-day price makes a 3% move this is not a 3% shift in value, it’s a 3% shift in *aggregate expectations about future value.*

And that makes sense, right? Expectations are pretty ephemeral so they can move fast.
4/

Consider volatility through this same lens. When a market is highly volatile, this means that expectations about forward value are evolving rapidly.

This happened in March when everyone got scared about Covid - it broke people’s forward expectations, and thus broke markets.
5/

A Bloomberg article today reported that human-run hedge funds trounced quants in 2020 - a turnaround from the experience of recent years. Renaissance Technologies - run by Jim Simons - saw its Institutional Diversified Alpha & Global Equities funds fall by 32% and 31%

The fundamental problem with computer/AI driven trading strats is - and always has been - that the models will never be capable of evaluating novel situations which have not happened before. This was undoing of LTCM, as well as port. insurance which caused 1987 stockmarket crash.

A global pandemic was not in the past datasets, so the bots don't know what to do. AI is only good where you have sizeable and complete datasets that can 'train' the AI to recognized statistical patterns too complex for humans to extract, and use it to make accurate predictions.

This works phenomenally well in situations that regularly recur within the bounds of a confined range of possible outcomes, but it is prone to disastrous error where discontinuities can occur where outcomes can suddenly bear no resemblance to outcomes in past datasets.

How do you teach an AI to determine if there is a cat in photo? You 'train' it by showing it millions of photos labelled by humans that tell the AI whether there was in fact a cat in it or not. The AI pick ups statistical regularities & uses to make inferences on new photos.

It's great that more people are becoming aware of the importance of investing BUT, as we seek out more investment opportunities, you should know that unlike Shrek, all that glitters is not gold. Not all good looking investment opportunities are safe and legit.
 
You should also

know that an investment opportunity doesn't have to be a Ponzi scheme for you to run away from it.
 
Most of the investment opportunities available in the Nigerian Fintech space are 3rd party investment.
 
The way 3rd party investment works is: a company gets money from investors

to create value which can be in the form of a business (e.g. fish farm, real estate etc.). After a certain period, that business should generate profit and the company then pays investors their capital plus a share of that profit as returns.
 
It becomes a problem when the

investment doesn't generate any profit or the profit is not enough to pay investors the promised returns. This is where Ponzi/pyramid schemes come in.
 
A Ponzi scheme is when a company/person offers an investment opportunity to users but in reality, uses the money from newer

investors to pay older investors. Basically, robbing Peter to pay Paul. As you can imagine, Ponzi schemes are only profitable as long as there are enough Peters to take care of the Pauls. When the number of Peters that sign up to the "investment opportunity"/the amount of money

Few days back, I shared my investment thesis for ITC.

Today, I want to share the detailed presentation.

Focus is on explaining & analyzing the ITC 'business' and not the divided opinions about its 'stock price'.

Thread 👇

@finbloggers @dmuthuk @FinMedium @ITCCorpCom

1/ Financial Performance

- Decent overall growth.
- Weak revenue growth in recent years.
- PAT growth > EBIT growth > revenue growth.

2/ Financial Position

- NCA have almost tripled.
- Equity has almost quadrupled.
- Negligible debt / insignificant liabilities.

3/ Cash Management

- CFO growth < PAT growth.
- CFO enough to cover both re-investments & dividend.
- Consistent re-investment & increasing shareholder payouts.

4/ Key Metrics

- ROCE/ROE near minimum but still healthy.
- Margins at decade highs.
- Asset utilizations at decade lows.
- Comfortable solvency, minimal leverage.
- Strong cash conversion.

Stocks to Watch 2021 - Full Analysis Blog Thread

$TDOC* $PINS* $CRWD* $FSLY* $NET $APPS $DDOG* $U $PTON $ROKU* $ZM* $DOCU $CRM $UBER* $ABNB

* = Stocks I own

https://t.co/XrJo0vxb13

Detailed analysis for each individual stock is within this thread, via screenshot from the blog

1) $TDOC - $199.96

2) $PINS - $65.90

3) $CRWD - $211.82

4) $FSLY - $87.37

So one last go.

I will try to do this thread without swearing but it will be hard…
…and I’m afraid im really going to have to spell it out to some of you.

This EU has set out a way back to Rejoin…but many of you remainers still don’t get it....

- A thread -

2/

How many of you wanging on about Starmer actually read the treaty or commentary on it?

Of course it’s lousy. But in 1 way it’s good:
If you’d read it, you'd know EU have cleverly & quite deliberately set out a way back to rejoin..

...with big bl**dy lanterns to mark the way

3/
The treaty sets up not just a framework for constant negotiations but 5 year reviews for “adjustment”. Anything is possible 2026:
Single Market, alignment up to 90% of EU membership – but one thing won’t be – Rejoin.
& that’s as 2024 election won’t be fought on 2nd referendum.

4/

Johnson/a Brexiter will be PM in 2024 – they’ll win any election on 2nd referendum – easily.
Which is why Labour ruled it out.

Also not clear EU would be exactly "enthralled" by a non-aligned state suddenly deciding it’ll (re)join EU.

You – all of us - need to get smarter.

5/

What we all must understand....and fast is:

The road to rejoining the EU runs thru alignment...

....Which runs thru 2026 review...

....Which depends on 2024 election.

So how do we get there?

Floor trading and fintwit share an overlapping dynamic

"cooperative competition"

It'll be fun to lay out some basics of the floor trading ecosystem and you will spot analogies.

First an fyi.

The floor gave traders what was known as "time/place advantage". It was the first place an order became public if it was not an electronic order.

Let's classify the traders on the floor:

"Locals" and prop firms

"Locals" are independent traders.

They trade their own money and secure the right to trade on the floor by owning or leasing one of the limited seats which represented an ownership stake by the exchange's "members" (this was before demutualization)

You know prop shops.

Names like Group One, Timber Hill (IBKR), Jane Street, CTC, DRW, Cooper Neff, O'Connor, Cutler, Wolverine, and my alma mater SIG.

Traders representing these firms usually have a salary and bonus (discretionary, formulaic, or hybrid)

A little digression. There's a 3rd class of trader which is a "backed" trader which blurs local and firm.

These firms were usually tied to clearing firms and offered economies of scale in risk management, software, data, clearing rates.

I left SIG in 2008 to get backed...

Asana is the tool we all know even if we don't use it ourselves. With that famous B2C CEO that decided to do SaaS next.

It's crossed $250,000,000 in ARR and is starting to march upmarket

Here are 5 Interesting Learnings from Asana at $250M ARR:

#1. Asana, like Slack, has self-service roots. But now, 40% of its customers are closed by the sales team, trending to 50%.

Asana is now planning to double the size of its sales team in 2020

#2. Asana has 115% NRR overall, but it's the segmentation that's interesting.

140% NRR for $50k+ customers
125% NRR for $5k-$50k customers
100% or so NRR for < $5k customers

Given it still skews 60% SMB, this is consistent with other market leaders like Zendesk, etc

#3. Asana is growing 55% at $250M+ in ARR, which is very impressive and top-tier. But its $50k+ accounts are growing >>100%+<<

We saw with Zendesk and Shopify the SMB growth keep pace with enterprise, and we saw with Slack enterprise be the engine of growth

Asana is in middle

#4. Its crossed 89,000 customers, so the average customer pays ~$2,800 a year. So the average ticket is still quite small.

Asana has the challenge many of you do. The Big Customers are growing fastest (100% YoY), but 40% of its revenue is still from accounts < $5k ACV.

By far, one of the most interesting Ethereum addresses I've seen is @0x_b1.

It's quite an interesting social experiment as well - a $300m whale starting a Twitter account for fun. Check their bio.

Let's break down the address and see what they are doing with their capital. 👇

0xb1 was created in mid-August, amid the food farming craze.

The address is active every day of the week and consistently makes transactions between 12:00 UTC and 6:00 UTC (sleeps between 7-11).

Likely U.S. based individual or team based on this history.

h/t @nansen_ai

0xb1 is a yield farming beast, to say the least.

It's industrial farming at its best - hundreds of transactions, swapping in and out of the latest yield farms on Ethereum.

Fun fact: the address has spent $111,000 in ether on transaction fees since its inception. Ow.

According to @DeBankDeFi, the address has a current net worth of $280 million, with $381 million in assets or staked assets and $101 million in debt.

Not too sure if this is 100% accurate, as there may be some new farms that it may not capture or represent properly.

99% of this capital is active in yield farms.

Out of the ~$280 million, only ~$250k is naked.

The address has $150 million worth of ETH and WBTC collateral deposited in Compound, which is being used to borrow $80 million worth of stablecoins.

C-ratio scares me a bit.

Thoughts heading into 2021: 🎇🎇

We will be sharing some additional stocks in upcoming podcasts, but we've 🤜#Pounded🤛 a lot of stocks in 2020 --> So what are we keeping in 2021 and beyond?

For Full Newsletter Email Us! 📩

[email protected]

Thread Below 👇👇👇👇

Top Winners Since Pounding The Table Started:

👊 $JMIA +475%
🌲 $GRWG +352%
👊 $MGNI +264%
👊 $NTLA +192%
🌲 $TRSSF +190%
👊 $EDIT +142%
👊 $NNOX +136%
👊 $CELH +125%
👊 $MP +122%
👊 $FTCH +120%
👊 $SI +119%
👊 $CRWD +106%
👊 $BLFS +99% (Close enough)

Details Below:

"Heads Of The Table"

We’ve broken more tables than IKEA has on backorder in pounding these so much. These swaggy Mini Monsters grew into full-fledged beasts and likely will continue to dance in 2021!

👊 $MELI
👊 $SE
👊 $TDOC
👊 $FVRR
👊 $SQ
👊 $ETSY

Ecommerce Leaders In 2021: Yes, some of these eCommerce stocks are in "Heads of Table" and some further below in SPAC's

We are looking at these 2 to continue in 2021.

👊 $JMIA
👊 $FTCH

Genomics: These had incredible runs in 2020 and should only continue in 2021. Health is Wealth, if we can find ways to get healthier - convince us Genomics won't continue to flourish

👊 $ARKG - ARK ETF
👊 $BLFS
👊 $CRSP
👊 $EDIT
👊 $NTLA
👊 $NVTA

My 2021 DeFi Predictions:

1\ the rise of Decentralized Derivatives
In 2020, the embryo of the DeFi derivative market started to take shape. A dozen DeFi derivative platforms were established and began to launch mainnets. I expect this market will explode in 2021.

2\ Central bank currencies
The COVID-19 pandemic will continue to haunt the world's economy for some time. The economic uncertainty will last.
China will launch its Central Bank Digital Currency in 2021, and many will follow.

3\ Cross Chain BTC will continue to grow.
BTC will take a more important role in DeFi and Derivatives.

4\ Regulations intensify
There will be an increase in official and legislative scrutiny from regulatory agencies concerning the overall cryptocurrency industry internationally.

5\ More traditional money into Crypto and DeFi
Regulations are not bad things. More traditional money will find legitimate paths to crypto investment and in DeFi applications. This may become the drive to another great bubble.

A thread on $TSLA / $TSLAQ the stock in 2020:
Don’t retweet this, @gordonjohnson19 would not like the unit of #Gordon to trend. /2

/2 Some of you may ask: “What is a #Gordon?”
This used to be easy to answer. @gordonjohnson19 was famous for his bearish price target on $TSLA: $ 87. Prior to the 5/1 split. /3

/3 His price target (one #Gordon) translated into $17.40 post split. That price target was supposed to be the real value of the stock, those targets are usually for a twelve month timeframe: @Tesla the company ~ 1 #Gordon. /4

/4 One #Gordon wasn’t meant to tell us by how much the stock would rise every 10 days in 2020, but it ended up doing just that: $TSLA started the year at $86.05 or $430.25 pre split. It ended the year at $705.67, hence went up $619.62 ($3,098.10) or 35.6 #Gordon. /5

/5 So on average $TSLA added almost 1 #Gordon every 10 days. That’s despite falling to it’s annual relativ low on March 20th. /6

THREAD: So I looked into angel investing (so you don't have to) and this is my personal experience with the #angelinvestor community.

This is not my area of practice, so this is my experience as an investor...

(1) You generally have to qualify to be an investor. As part of the investment process you universally have to attest that this is fun moneys and you don't need for like 10 years and in fact don't need it ever because you'll probs never get it back.

So from the jump these are not traditional "investments", they are not part of a balanced portfolio and should be thought of as like a gambling allocation for a trip to Vegas or buying lotto tickets. You could win, but it's more for the fun along the way.

(2) It's actually NOT that fun along the way. If you invested in consumer products sometimes they'll do like kickstarter-type bonuses or discounts, but in general, it's like an e-mail once a quarter or even less frequently...

(3) The minimums. Most of the minimums for real angel investment funds with good terms is $25,000 or higher. ($50,000 seems more common.)

There are a few exceptions:
AngelList often has $1,000-$3,000 minimums.

Listening to grumpy MPs in the Commons today, you might incorrectly think the UK-EU agreement didn’t cover much.

Find the agreements here:

https://t.co/RIg0yhl9ee

The contents follow below to illustrate scope.

PART ONE: COMMON AND INSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS
Title I: General provisions
Title II: Principles of interpretation and definitions
Title III: Institutional framework

PART TWO: TRADE, TRANSPORT, FISHERIES AND OTHER ARRANGEMENTS
HEADING ONE: TRADE
Title I: Trade in goods
Title II: Services and investment
Title III: Digital trade
Title IV: Capital movements, payments, transfers and temporary safeguard measures
Title V: Intellectual property

Title VI: Public procurement
Title VII: Small and medium-sized enterprises
Title VIII: Energy
Title VI: Public procurement
Title VII: Small and medium-sized enterprises
Title VIII: Energy

Title IX: Transparency
Title X: Good regulatory practices and regulatory cooperation
Title XI: Level playing field for open and fair competition and sustainable development
Title XII: Exceptions