What's Interesting In Business News: Sell-side, Trade flow, Unique Content, IPOs, Technical Analysis, Asset Management, Giant Three, $UBER, ETFs, $JWN, Boeing, Mifid2, Youtube, Foxes & Hedgehogs
May 27, 2019 | Volume 10
Good writeup by @foliomag on how a few media properties transitioned to digital-first. Even with a b2b or senior executive client base.
Life After Print: How 3 Magazines Are Navigating Their New Business Models
A new paper which explains how institutional brokers share flow with their clients.
The Relevance of Broker Networks for Information Diffusion in the Stock Market
Memberships continue to grow as part of the media business model landscape.
The latest key newsroom job: membership editor
AT&T accepts bitcoin
Mobile carrier AT&T will now accept payments in crypto
Innovation in the portable gaming hardware space.
Panic’s Playdate is a pint-sized gaming machine with a ‘season’ of 12 intriguing titles
Meredith believes that business and sports news are commodities with too many free competitors. So they sold Time and Fortune. Shut down print Money. Selling Sports Illustrated.
Unique content like celebrities and food can drive growth. Now the company is investing and building multi channel offerings for People and Better Homes & Gardens.
Why a Magazine Giant Wanted Nothing to Do With Time and Fortune
Goldman, Morgan and JPM dominate tech IPOs in the US.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman and JPMorgan’s grip on tech IPOs under threat after Uber
Technical analysis doesn’t work. How long before “reputable” brokerage firms stop pushing it?
Technical analysis in major brokerages and financial media
Seven trends in asset management: 1/active to passive 2/increased competition 3/everything is HFT 4/alt data 5/smart beta 6/ESG 7/fee compression
Seven Trends in Investment Management: Ronald N. Kahn
Do not follow the investment recommendations of journalists. Especially when they are strongly held.
One professor argues that the Giant Three will dominate shareholder voting for most major US public companies.
This could lead to deferential oversight which would result in insufficient checks on corporate management.
The Specter of the Giant Three
At Reagan Airport in VA, Uber and Lyft drivers have figured out how to game the algorithms to get higher passenger rates.
Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at Reagan National causing artificial price surges
ETF providers pay index providers $3.5 billion annually.
Understandably those fees are under pressure.
Index companies to feel the chill of fund managers’ price war
Nordstrom $JWN management launched a new digital campaign and a new loyalty program.
They moved to a digital-first strategy too aggressively and learned that many of their shoppers still need the mailings to remind them to shop.
Digital transformations are not easy.
Nordstrom Cuts Full-Year Forecast on Sales Slide; Shares Tumble
One professor believes that Boeing’s Compensation Committee played a major role in the 737 Max disaster.
Did Boeing’s Compensation Committee Play a Role in the 737 Max Scandal?
One former $UBER investor believes that the CEO change a few years back was the wrong move by the board.
Pretty scathing writeup by a VC in the FT.
Uber IPO woes stem from a lack of innovation
Nice roundup by Bloomberg of some of the new types of sell side research offerings in the post Mifid2 era.
Analysts Make Research Cooler, Wonkier and Bespoke to Lure Cash
YouTube offers every kid their 15 minutes of fame. Now parents have an opportunity to help.
Your Kid Wants to Be a YouTuber? There’s a Camp for That!
Deep domain experts tend to be very poor at both short term and long term predictions.
Well rounded folks with multi disciplinary knowledge tend to be much better.
Foxes are better than hedgehogs.
Private companies need to be aware that taking money from traditional public market investors could mean less support in the IPO.
Not only did Blackrock and Tiger not buy into the $UBER IPO but they actually sold shares as part of the offering.
BlackRock, Other Big Investors Spoil Uber’s Coming-Out Party
Who needs ETFs? Capital Group is doing just fine with research-heavy long-term-focused funds.
Nice writeup by Bloomberg explaining the “sleeve” system of portfolio management that Capital Group employs.
The $1.9 Trillion Fund Giant With a Crazy Idea About Investing
Japan is a big market for Twitter.
Twitter has over $500 million ARR in Japan. It’s one of the few western social media products which have succeeded in the market.
How Twitter Became Ubiquitous in Japan
Building a platform often requires subsidizing one side of the market to attract the other side.
A big problem is when you subsidize both sides perpetually.
Uber offers chastening lesson for platform businesses of the future