OFFICIAL STOCK MARKET AND ECONOMY THREAD VOL. A NEW CHAPTER

How did I not realize this was here? Info here will probably be 100x more useful than the stuff I've been seeing on WSB. Was up a ton in 2020 and gave all profits away and am down a good chunk as of now. Hopefully can find some better things to put my money on

What is thy WSB?
 
What is thy WSB?
reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets. I mostly track the daily discussion thread, but a lot of times it's pump and dumps on meme stocks. By the time I actually get to anything useful, it's gone up and not a great time to buy. But I do anyway and that's exactly why I'm at where I'm at lol. I guess it paid off for me with NIO and TSLA previously, but learned very quickly that stocks can drop super fast with QS. That thing wiped me out for about 3k and I've been trying to claw my way back ever since.
 
reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets. I mostly track the daily discussion thread, but a lot of times it's pump and dumps on meme stocks. By the time I actually get to anything useful, it's gone up and not a great time to buy. But I do anyway and that's exactly why I'm at where I'm at lol. I guess it paid off for me with NIO and TSLA previously, but learned very quickly that stocks can drop super fast with QS. That thing wiped me out for about 3k and I've been trying to claw my way back ever since.
"Never use more than 5% of your portfolio for any trade" - johnnyredstorm johnnyredstorm
- Michael Scott
 
WSB is nothing like this thread, WSB is lacking some oxygen and they don't really care to show it. There must be hell of a traders there, but they ain't sharing anything in there. It's just for the laughs.
 
"Never use more than 5% of your portfolio for any trade" - johnnyredstorm johnnyredstorm
- Michael Scott
lmao, I read this way too late. Was like 90% on NIO at 32 before the boom, then same transfered to PLTR at 24 and then to QS after the heavy dip. My problem has always been not diversifying and just yolo'ing. Plus I should be content with great buy prices, but somehow have fomo and end up averaging up more when I shouldnt. That last one especially got me lately. I'll just wait out to see if Biden's speech makes an impact on the market
 
Thought PLTR was going to test $30 again but went in lower than I otherwise would have on volume so I don't feel terrible. Just dabbling with a few others, but ONDS and BAC are killing it for me right now. Two very opposite outlooks though - might close ONDS but keep BAC as a staple.
 
lmao, I read this way too late. Was like 90% on NIO at 32 before the boom, then same transfered to PLTR at 24 and then to QS after the heavy dip. My problem has always been not diversifying and just yolo'ing. Plus I should be content with great buy prices, but somehow have fomo and end up averaging up more when I shouldnt. That last one especially got me lately. I'll just wait out to see if Biden's speech makes an impact on the market
At least you're realizing the issues early and can correct the bad habits. Start small, manage your risk and dont trade more than you're comfortable losing altogether. Blow ups ******* suck.
 
WSB has its pros and cons. Yes, I said pros. Can't tell you how much information I've gotten from there.

There's a ton of good DD done on there. A lot of it is overlooked and then people wanna FOMO when it catches on. That's where people get in trouble.

And some it is trash too. More often than not probably

Ultimately it is ones responsibility to do your own due diligence. You have to understand what works for you. And do your own research.

Also, question EVERYTHING. Even on here. Understand you own risk tolerance and do you.

There are many ways to skin a cat. For me, I just want to keep learning...



And make a LOT of money...lol
 
Incase anyone wants to look into Bandwidth, this guy takes the time to dive into it heavily.


BAND - Bandwidth Inc.
Current stock price: $158
Current market cap: $3.8 billion
Current enterprise value: $3.7 billion
Founded: August 1999 [read more]
Founders: David Morken and Henry Kaestner
Number of employees: 750+
Headquarters: Raleigh, NC
  • 2019 revenues: $232 million
  • 2020 revenues (est): $327 million
    40% YoY growth from 2019
  • 2021 revenues (est): $452 million
    38% YoY growth from 2019
$BAND 2020 Q3 Earnings Call [listen here]
$BAND All Earnings Calls [listen here]
$BAND 2020 Q3 10-Q Filing [click here]
$BAND Presentation about Voxbone acquisition, October 12th [click here]
$BAND 2019 Annual Report [click here]



$BAND - Bandwidth Inc.
Bandwidth operates as a cloud-based software-powered communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) provider in 60+ countries thanks to their recent acquisition of Voxbone which I’ll discuss below. The company operates in two segments, CPaaS and other. $BAND’s platform enables enterprises to create, scale, and operate voice and text communications services across applications and mobile devices. The company also provides SIP trunking, data resale, and hosted voice over Internet protocol services.


[$BAND currently serves large enterprises as well as small and medium-sized businesses. What really separates $BAND is that they’re the first and only CPaaS provider offering a robust selection of communications APIs built around their own Tier 1 network. This gives them a variety of advantages such as reliability, better security and more attractive pricing options for their customers.
PRODUCTS and SERVICES:
We live in a digital world where half our day is spent on our phones, using mobile apps, logging into secure websites, sending text messages, etc and it’s no different for large businesses and how they are transitioning to these consumer preferences.
Just today alone, I logged into my personal bank account, logged into my business bank account, logged into my trading platform and logged into Stripe Payments -- each time I was texted a time sensitive pin# which I had to type into the mobile app or my desktop in order to login. These types of notifications and messages are coming through API products available through Bandwidth.
Every time you order from DoorDash or get an Uber or make a mobile payment or forget your password... the time sensitive notifications being triggered by these transactions are coming through API products like Bandwidth. Every single day we are using Bandwidth products and services but don’t even realize it because they’re integrated so seamlessly into the apps we already use and trust.
Below are some screenshots from $BAND’s website explaining some of their main products and services being utilized by their 2,000+ customers.





CUSTOMERS:
$BAND works with some of the world’s largest technology companies including Google, Microsoft, Zoom, Cisco, Uber, RingCentral, DialPad (UberConference) and 2,000+ others.
In Q3 alone $BAND added 115 net new customers and continued to see more spending from their existing customers as reflected in their 131% DBNER (dollar based net expansion rate).





ACQUISITIONS:
On October 12th, 2020 $BAND announced they were acquiring Voxbone for $519 million or approximately 6x 2020 estimated revenues which means this deal would be accretive for $BAND shareholders [read more].
Voxbone is one of the leading CaaS companies in Europe and has 900+ enterprise customers including Zoom, Uber, Skype, Dialpad and Aircall. This acquisition gives $BAND a global presence covering 60+ countries and 93% of the world’s GDP.




$BAND vs $TWLO (Twilio):
As much as I like $BAND based on their own fundamentals and growth potential, this newsletter would not be complete unless I spent some time talking about the comparison to $TWLO which is the world’s largest CPaaS company with a current market cap of $60 billion.
$BAND and $TWLO are competitors for many of the same enterprise customers because they offer many of the same communication products. $TWLO does have more to offer due to recent acquisitions of SendGrid and Segment but $TWLO’s core business is still very similar to $BAND except they don’t have their own Tier 1 network.
Even though I like $TWLO and I respect what they have built, it is my opinion that $BAND is way undervalued when you look at the actual numbers.0
If you look below, the top chart is the quarterly numbers and estimates for $TWLO, the bottom chart is $BAND. If you look at the past 4 quarters, $BAND grew revenues by 40% while $TWLO grew revenues by 47%. If you look forward over the next 4 quarters (based on analysts estimates), $BAND is expected to grow revenues by 39% while $TWLO is expected to grow revenues by 32%. This is partly because $TWLO benefited more from the political messaging in 2020 than $BAND did.
If you look at the other numbers such as EBITDA margins, net income margins and gross margins they are very similar.
So considering that $BAND is expected to grow faster than $TWLO over the next 12 months with similar margins, why is $BAND trading at 8x 2021 revenues while $TWLO is trading at 24x 2021 revenues? This makes no sense whatsoever. Throw in the fact that $BAND would be a perfect acquisition target for 5-6 different companies and if anything $BAND should be trading at the premium, not $TWLO.
Even if $BAND’s P/S multiple expanded to 12-15x in 2021 (which is fair compared to $TWLO) and based on $452 million in 2021 revenues, using the midpoint of 13.5x, it would take the stock price up to $251 per share (assuming 24.3 million shares outstanding) which is 58% higher than current prices. If $BAND traded at the same P/S multiple as $TWLO then you’re talking about a $450 stock. I don’t expect this to happen but hopefully my point is coming through that $BAND is way undervalued compared to $TWLO despite relatively similar businesses.
$TWLO Financials:


$BAND Financials:





More $BAND vs $TWLO:
When you visit the $BAND website it’s pretty clear they are going after $TWLO customers. If you scroll down to the footer you’ll see a link called “Twilio Alternative” [click here]. These are some of the images you’ll see on that page:








Since $BAND owns their own Tier 1 network they are able to offer better pricing than $TWLO but sadly I don’t think most enterprise customers realize this. Since $TWLO is the more well-known and established company I think most enterprise customers just assume they’re the better, cheaper choice which is not true.
I want to be clear…. I think $TWLO is a great company and I have owned the stock multiple times before but if you’re comparing the two companies it’s simply impossible to conclude that $BAND is not extremely undervalued when compared to $TWLO.
I think it’s possible this year other investors and fund managers will come to this same conclusion and begin trimming their $TWLO and adding some $BAND because they’re still bullish on the CPaaS sector but want to own the $3.8 billion company trading at 8x sales that could easily be acquired any day for $5-6 billion.
FINANCIALS:
$BAND’s Q3 revenues came in at $84.8 million compared with $60.5 million in the year-ago quarter. The 40.1% year-over-year increase was primarily driven by higher CPaaS revenues. CPaaS revenues surged 43.3% to $73.8 million from $51.5 million in the year-ago quarter. CPaaS revenues now account for 87% of total revenues. Top line growth was a result of accelerating trends in the work from home / work from anywhere. As mentioned earlier, dollar-based net retention rate was 131% compared with 116% in the prior-year quarter. This shows that existing customers are spending more money with $BAND.
Adjusted CPaaS gross profit jumped to $36.7 million from $24 million in the year-ago quarter with respective margins of 50%, up from 47% a year ago. Bandwidth ended Q3 with 2,015 active CPaaS customers.
Given that $BAND already raised their full year guidance for 2020 to $327 million it’s safe to say we know that $BAND grew top line 40% over 2019 and based on estimates for 2021 we should see similar top line growth with continued improvements in gross margins and operating margins leading to EPS of $.30 to $.50 for 2021.
If we’re still doing comparisons to $TWLO, they are expected to barely turn a profit in 2021, partly because of their $3.2 billion acquisition of Segment which was a reported purchase price of 20x sales. In all fairness I still don’t know Segment’s top line growth numbers or margins.
In the short term it feels like $TWLO might have overpaid but in the long-term it could certainly turn out to be a great deal at a great price. It was smart of $TWLO to use their inflated stock to do the deal. Even though it’s way too early to make a definitive judgement on $TWLO’s acquisition of Segment, I do like that $BAND was able to acquire Voxbone for just 6x sales making this deal accretive to earnings for 2021 thus preventing excessive dilution for shareholders.




CHARTS and TECHNICALS:




[/TD][TD][/TD]
[/TR]

As you can see from the chart above, $BAND is sitting right on a couple moving averages and assuming the stock can hold these levels, it should act as support and could mean a big move higher is on the horizon.




These two charts are comparing the last 6 and 12 months of stock performance for $TWLO and $BAND.
$TWLO is in the red and $BAND is in the blue. Despite very similar business models and very similar growth rates, $TWLO outperformed $BAND by a wide margin in 2020. My hope is that $BAND starts to narrow this gap because the 3 things that fuel stock performance are revenue growth, earnings growth and multiple expansion … of which $BAND has all three. Once again, there’s no valid argument in my mind that justifies why $TWLO should be up 212% over the past year while $BAND is only up 128%. Either $TWLO’s P/S multiple needs to come down or $BAND/s P/S multiple needs to go up or perhaps they meet somewhere in the middle which means $TWLO trades sideways while $BAND goes higher.
MANAGEMENT:
David Morken is not only the original founder of $BAND but he’s still the current CEO and by all accounts a great leader and motivator. David gets very strong reviews on Glassdoor as does Bandwidth as a company [read here].
Here’s a recent video David made after the Voxbone acquisition… you can feel the excitement and passion in his voice… this is what you want from a CEO [click here]
Below is the current management team with a link to their profiles on $BAND’s website [click here].



CONCLUSION:
I’ll keep this part relatively short because you’re probably falling asleep. Earlier this year I owned $BAND from $90/share up to $190/share then sold it because I was looking to reduce my tech/cloud exposure. Since I sold my $BAND a few months ago the stock has pulled back into the $150s and in my opinion looks very attractive at these levels. Not only do I like the fundamentals but the technicals are lining up as well.
I began buying $BAND a little over a week ago and have since added to the position multiple times to the point where it’s now a 5.8% holding for me. Not only does $BAND look undervalued compared to $TWLO but it also looks undervalued compared to other cloud stocks like $FSLY $NET $ZM $DDOG and others. Very rarely over the past 6 months have you had a chance to buy a cloud/tech stock with 38% top line growth, improving margins, positive free cash flow and international expansion at just 8x sales. I have a feeling that Wall Street and large fund managers are going to wake up in the next month or so and realize that $BAND should be trading at $200+
The reason I started this newsletter was to find under-the-radar growth stocks with strong fundamentals and good entry points that might be ready to explode higher and I believe $BAND could be next. The goal with my portfolio is to only own stocks that I believe could appreciate by 50% or more over the next 12 months and I think $BAND has that potential thanks to the triple-turbo engine of revenue growth, earnings growth and multiple expansion.
I’m not saying you need to rush out and buy $BAND today because a pullback in this stock or any stock is always a possibility however if you have a 6-12 month investment horizon (or longer) I think $BAND is worth a good look especially if you believe in the current messaging, video conferencing, work from home, text/voice trends that are exploding all around us.
One last thing, I would never buy or recommend a stock on takeover hopes alone however the big legacy tech companies like Cisco, Oracle, IBM, etc are sitting on piles of cash and seeing slowing revenue growth and since I already believe 2021 will be a year full of M&A deals and it would not surprise me if $BAND was gobbled up by one of them.
I hope you enjoyed this writeup on $BAND. I spent 12-15 hours researching this company over the past week which included reading and listening to everything possible and since I can’t squeeze everything into these writeups... don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about the company. I’m also hoping to have the CEO on my Adding Alpha show in early February.
PS: There are also some analyst reports you can read here [link]. Last time I checked there were 9 analysts that covered $BAND and 8 of them have buy recommendations.

 
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I wound up closing snap after hours, just uneasy about the market and social is under pressure. Figuring long weekend we might see heavy selling tomorrow? I’ve been wrong so many times though, I need to just follow price and forget everything else. Thankfully I’m still very long and have kept perspective.

Bot more IPOE, onds, haacu today, started into some fuse hoping for blockfi. I’ve been thinking about starting into hec for talkspace I just don’t know if there’s enough there to warrant an investment, I’d rather save the bullet for TDOC honestly but this one does intrigue me.

soon as these wash sale restrictions go away I’m buying TDOC again. I can’t help but see this as at minimum a $100 billion company with the potential for it to grow into a trillion dollar market cap in ten years if they nail the livongo synergies and find new ways to innovate and redefine healthcare. Remote monitoring, personalized medicine and telehealth are the future. We basically have a confluence of all of that in one company. Now it’s up to management to execute. It also helps me have this conviction seeing Cathie wood buying literally every single day and hearing that VC’s are investing heavily into telehealth. There’s a good thematic to play here.

if fb comes down into the low 200s I’m gonna have to put some on. Just too cheap not to at that point.


At least you're realizing the issues early and can correct the bad habits. Start small, manage your risk and dont trade more than you're comfortable losing altogether. Blow ups ****ing suck.
Everything here and I’m gonna be very blunt because I blew up two portfolios and never went to see anyone go through that stress and anxiety, number one, if you started in October, you don’t know **** and you’ve been fooled by the greatest bull market of all time, number two, look at your last trade and if you can’t point out on your chart why you entered when you did, stop ******* trading immediately with anything more than a couple of shares. Pull back, sit back, see the big picture. You make the most money investing in the best stocks growing the quickest. You make good money swing trading strong stocks in strong trends clearing supply. If you don’t know how to spot these things fam, we got some work to do so you can be on the path of creating wealth and not blow up like those losers on wsb who have to get an allowance from their wife’s boyfriend while they listen to him **** her from the basement.
 
Speaking of new kids on the block. I want to crowdsource a recommendation. What broker would you guys recommend for someone brand new to investing. Like, so new that they ask me if Acorn is good for investing. Low cash amounts, but wanting to get started, interested in fractional shares but not a requirement, and not 100% committed to learning the more advanced stuff (we've had the ETF talk and the buy-and-ignore talk).

I use Ameritrade and Vanguard, neither of which I'd recommend to someone investment-illiterate. So I'm wondering, Schwab? Fidelity? What apps are good for newbs (not you Robinhood)?

I'm also pushing them to a simple brokerage acct, instead of an IRA (traditional or Roth) since they can have access to the money easily if needed.
 
Speaking of new kids on the block. I want to crowdsource a recommendation. What broker would you guys recommend for someone brand new to investing. Like, so new that they ask me if Acorn is good for investing. Low cash amounts, but wanting to get started, interested in fractional shares but not a requirement, and not 100% committed to learning the more advanced stuff (we've had the ETF talk and the buy-and-ignore talk).

I use Ameritrade and Vanguard, neither of which I'd recommend to someone investment-illiterate. So I'm wondering, Schwab? Fidelity? What apps are good for newbs (not you Robinhood)?

I'm also pushing them to a simple brokerage acct, instead of an IRA (traditional or Roth) since they can have access to the money easily if needed.
WeBull
 
Speaking of new kids on the block. I want to crowdsource a recommendation. What broker would you guys recommend for someone brand new to investing. Like, so new that they ask me if Acorn is good for investing. Low cash amounts, but wanting to get started, interested in fractional shares but not a requirement, and not 100% committed to learning the more advanced stuff (we've had the ETF talk and the buy-and-ignore talk).

I use Ameritrade and Vanguard, neither of which I'd recommend to someone investment-illiterate. So I'm wondering, Schwab? Fidelity? What apps are good for newbs (not you Robinhood)?

I'm also pushing them to a simple brokerage acct, instead of an IRA (traditional or Roth) since they can have access to the money easily if needed.
If advisory is an option, Betterment. Leaving is a huge pain, but I like how they invest EVERY cent. No cash is left.
 
Question? Any limitations on daily trades?
No, just the standard account needing to 25k for unlimited day trading. Anything less then you can only perform 3 day trades within 5 successive business days. They also offer after hours trading. regardless of the value of your account.
 
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