atbed

How do you like these guys versus ENV? TIA

Nice analysis, AdjustedEarnings. There's a lot of great stuff on this thread for generalists. I got nervous about this stock last year, because I didn't know if their high NIM was sustainable; and that, to a large extent, helped them achieve their great efficiency ratio. If NIM and efficiency ratios are not sustainable, they do not deserve to trade at a premium to TBV. The current origination/paydown trends are a positive and a negative. They are (1) pulling back as new projects don't meet their standards and (2) seeing good projects get permanent financing which are both good signs. But now they are experiencing a slowdown in asset growth, guiding to a possible drop in their non-purchased loan book, and facing headwinds to their NIM & efficiency ratio. They will make fewer RESG loans as demand worsens around the country. My sense is that competition has heated up as CRE lenders have stopped tightening standards. So it's kind of hard seeing RESG unfunded balances grow, and therefore enough originations to offset large pay downs. I had thought OZK would leverage their relationships, replacing relatively smaller development loans with much larger stabilized real estate loans. That was part of my original thesis, but apparently that is not the case. Maybe that will change. Otherwise, I am not sure how they will combat falling NIM. It may be hard to build the same deposit franchise, that investors in the space like so much. It's also now nearly impossible to see them make an accretive acquisition.

Haha

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-09/new-evidence-of-hacked-supermicro-hardware-found-in-u-s-telecom?srnd=premium

Maybe the slow grind accelerates after the FCC auctions off more mid-band spectrum

It actually sounds like he's referring to overall margins, because he's saying expenses will be growing by 50% in 2018 and also growing faster than revenue in 2019. Anyone else have a take on this? I would think they cleared up these concerns in post-earnings follow-up calls, and believe they meant 35% overall, but what do I know.

Just from reading the Nestle news it looks like SBUX gets 7.15$ billion USD and additional revenue. That sounds pretty weird to me, what am i missing? They get a lump sum, but give up sales for the CPG business. Despite the royalty and lump sum payment (buybacks), I don't think the deal is accretive to EPS.

https://www.ft.com/content/71e9b868-752e-11e8-aa31-31da4279a601 "China is preparing to pass a wide-ranging law that would hold ecommerce platforms run by Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent liable for fraudulent goods sold by vendors on their sites." Does this reduce one of JD's advantages at a time when their biggest competitor is already investing heavily into logistics/fulfillment?

I'm currently spending some time in China, and have spent the last few weeks in Shanghai/Beijing. Naturally, I've been hearing a ton on JD and BABA. Here's an interesting POV: Both sites have fakes, because they are extremely difficult to get rid of. People expect this. JD talks a lot about getting rid of fakes, but some actually believe they talk the talk more than they can walk the walk. In comparison, Taobao is very open about the existence of fakes on their platform. The view is that Taobao will do what it can, but that consumers need to be careful. I'm also hearing that Taobao's customer service is better. In fact, I've heard horror stories about JD bullying their customers. Now none of this information was gathered through a formal survey, so take it with a large grain of salt.

Hmm thanks for sharing. Very helpful.

TTM free cash flow came in at 2.9B. But of course, they are investing to shift the entire base to digital... It doesn't look that cheap if you look at reported FCF, but maybe it is cheap if you are looking at a few years

I had some massive problems with our phone service with one of the cable guys this week. Every time we lose cable internet service, we lose home phone service. I'm not picking on CHTR here specifically (just choosing to post here), because it probably applies to all cable providers. IMO VOIP phone service through one of the cable providers is a complete rip-off. We are in the process of portering over our phone number from a cable provider to google voice (with a pit stop through T-Mobile). Combining phone/internet just seems like a marketing play to juice pricing. Not sure how material this is. But curious what other board members think.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/tesla-recalls-123000-model-s-cars-over-potential-power-steering-failure-reports.html Boy, is this interior ugly. I wonder what happens when the central touch screen goes bad when driving.

Thanks for sharing.

BAML came out with a note on VZ this week. They were very bullish on 5G wireless broadband which may be the cause of weakness on CHTR stock this week. Their general opinion is that wireless broadband will be a viable #2, but they don't expect an impact on cable/fiber until 2020.