Manchester & London Inve... Share Discussion Threads

[takeiteasy] 28/2/2024 15:39

nav 749p (up nearly 6% over the week and 24% 2024 YTD) so sell at 626p for c.16% discount.

[takeiteasy] 27/2/2024 07:05

Some more specific and detailed feedback on MSFT AI co-pilot product to address the question - how does it work and is it adding value?



10mins52secs is some anecdotal feedback ...

"Users have referenced it (co-pilot) to being on a drug, they can't imagine not having it.."

Limited and only anecdotal, but I do not know of any UK users of co-pilot so need to rely on this type of feedback for now for reassurance etc ..

dyor and no advice

[takeiteasy] 27/2/2024 05:41

As a purely hypothetical exercise (take with a pinch of salt of course as far too many limiting assumptions for real world) and picking up some more specific data points over 3 years (5 year not to hand readily) to test our manager’s portfolio management philosophy,

MNL approach has a limited diversification with microsoft as the core holding and a few high quality satellite holdings.

Does the data show at all that this is any better than an AI portfolio with much broader diversification which MNL would argue results in a lower average quality of stocks (however you define these metrics of course).

Base line for Microsoft is 3 year performance is up 75%.

So if in theory MNL had held the same portfolio it has now 3 years ago (it did not as we know hence the need for this exercise) and that we add in a limited number of high quality stocks which were all held for the entire 3 year period, did this add or detract to this excellent result for MSFT based on constituent holdings only ?

Picking up 3 year performance outcomes from the larger holdings we now have

Nvidia up 476%, Arista networks up 291%, Broadcom up 176%, Synopsys up 135%,
Cadence up 115%, AMD up 108%, ASML up 67%, Oracle up 72%

As comparator, L&G AI ETF is an established and well diversified ETF with 61 holdings and is up 4% over 3 years.

You would never use this approach for investment decision making given all the limiting assumptions, but to my mind it does illustrate to some degreee that while AI remains on a roll his approach does seem to have merit,

dyor and no advice

[takeiteasy] 26/2/2024 21:14

Dimon said Monday that there are 200 people at JPMorgan doing research on the large language models that have recently been rolled out by tech companies.


dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 26/2/2024 09:51

Question I'm sure many holders of MNL have pondered at times- does 32% in one stock add or detract to risk management. Our manager has reflected on this and posted the following tweet this week. His answer is aimed to clearly justify his position as you would expect.

"Every day we get "advice" to diversify from quality stocks to lesser quality stocks.
·
After Bill Gates became friends with Warren Buffett, he began to diversify his portfolio and sold Microsoft shares. Bill Gates' fortune today is 138 billion dollars, if he hadn't diversified it would be 1.33 trillion dollars".

I had an email coincidentally this weekend from the lead manager of the ARK ETF funds saying she felt smaller software firms were a better way to play AI.

We do not have 5 year performance figures so you cannot really answer this one on a comparable basis.

The only proxy you can easily find is the handful of AI ETFs that a decent number of smaller software firms for diversification where performance over 12 months and 2024 YTD is well back on MNL. So nothing really proven long term (5 Years plus) either way yet but a need to watch the numbers and keep comparing.

dyor and no advice

[takeiteasy] 24/2/2024 10:54

To add...

"Additionally, Wood picked Tesla Inc. over Nvidia as the top AI player for the next five years, a decision that seems to have contributed to ARK’s current position."

This stock gets bashed a lot on our MNL manager's twitter page so you could not have more polar opposite views on AI investment management.

[takeiteasy] 24/2/2024 10:48

hxxps://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/cathie-wood-watches-as-nvidia-rides-the-ai-wave-she-predicted-last-year-why-is-ark-sitting-out-1033096574?op=1

Shares of Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) are soaring, riding the AI wave, while Cathie Wood‘s ARK Innovation ETF (NYSE:ARKK) sits on the sidelines.

What Happened: ARK’s flagship fund hasn’t held Nvidia shares since early 2023, despite Wood’s belief in the potential of disruptive technologies. This decision has resulted in ARKK missing out on Nvidia’s stellar performance, with the fund down nearly 8% this year, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Wood’s smaller ETFs have recently reduced their already limited investments in the company led by Jensen Huang.

ARK Investment Management opted to move away from Nvidia, judging it as over-priced. Wood, in 2023, characterized Nvidia as "easy," "really expensive," and "very obvious," stating a preference for less-talked-about companies such as UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) and Twilio Inc. (NYSE:TWLO).

Nvidia has a fwd PE ratio = 37, UIpath's = 62, Tesla =45 and of the 10 largest holdings in the now world famous ARKK ETF, only 3 appear to have a fwd PE ratio less than Nvidia. Some are way higher Roblox=192 and coinbase=632.

Let everyone make their own mind up how to make sense of this data :)

Dyor and no advice intended ..

[takeiteasy] 23/2/2024 11:01

Morningstar 2024 share price performance - 2024 YTD MNL 18%, PCT & ATT both c.11%. Nice little gap opening up already in 2024 against closest rivals as we managed in 2023...dyor and no advice...

[takeiteasy] 23/2/2024 09:23

So, time to do what Mosesmann has been prone to doing before, and give NVDA shares a new Street-high price target. His objective goes from $1,100 to $1,400, suggesting the shares will climb another 79% higher from here. It hardly needs mentioning, but Mosesmann’s rating stays a Buy.
No surprise stock climbs 2% up again in pre-market trading...

dyor and no advice etc

[takeiteasy] 22/2/2024 15:42

.hxxps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/stocks-can-get-more-expensive-says-strategist-don-t-get-in-front-of-fomo-for-now/ar-BB1iHJh8
dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 22/2/2024 10:04

VMH semi ETF up nearly 6% pre-market which also has 25% in Nvidia - so appears Nvidia is dragging up the other semis too...

dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 21/2/2024 22:51

Two of our other holdings also reported today also earnings beats.

For completeness links for all 3.

hxxps://uk.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/nvidia-forecasts-firstquarter-revenue-above-estimates-3346934

hxxps://uk.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/synopsis-beats-estimates-for-fq1-earnings-offers-optimistic-guidance-432SI-3346935

hxxps://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ansys-inc-q4-profit-increases-beats-estimates-1033089766

The nvidia earnings call video is quite something to listen to showing all the areas they are impacting with the technology.

dyor etc

[superadams] 21/2/2024 22:45

Nvidia up 10% after hours following earnings beat.

[takeiteasy] 21/2/2024 06:39

Open AI progress on creating quality videos from a request of text - progress over the past year is almost jaw dropping. e.g. at 6 mins 48 seconds..coastal scene..but some very important drawbacks too to iron out,..

I wonder what everyone is going to be doing with this technology as the genie seems to be out of the bottle


AI risk statement i.e. what are possible downsides with social media ..(e.g. 4mins 28 secs)

dyor and no advice

[takeiteasy] 19/2/2024 17:45

hxxps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/we-don-t-want-to-be-left-behind-tech-leaders-bullish-about-generative-ai-amid-the-hype/ar-BB1ikvHo

Technology disruptions are not new, but the pace of AI development and adoption sets it apart from past cycles.

“It’s evolving at a mind-boggling rate,” Cotter said.

Murthy said being able to push innovation forward but also maintain stability within a company is a balancing act.

“It’s like changing the tires while the car is running,” she said.

dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 17/2/2024 06:51

Given the company's size and its importance to the AI story, Nvidia’s results could be pivotal for market sentiment, said Kevin Landis, a portfolio manager at Firsthand Capital.

"Every time you get a big stock market rally there’s a favorite stock that leads it," said Landis, who regrets selling his shares in Nvidia last year. "It's hard not to look at Nvidia and see … that's driving the psychology of the overall market."

hxxps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/high-flying-nvidia-s-earnings-could-test-us-stock-market-s-ai-dreams/ar-BB1ip5go
hxxps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/nvidia-earnings-will-put-an-entire-stock-market-meme-to-the-test-again/ar-BB1in0eP

So 21/2 then to find out the latest financial reporting update :) dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 15/2/2024 09:53

Sam Altman on the AI future and discussion about chatgb5 at a recent conference


Dan Niles - explaining how he is investing over the big 7, long 4 and short 3 (he likes MSFT/Nvidia - although not so much Google/Tesla/Apple)


dyor and no advice etc

[takeiteasy] 14/2/2024 17:05

NAV 725.8 vs 715 last week - not bad after a down day on Nasdaq last night.

Discount now down to c.15%.

dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 14/2/2024 08:44

Two writers have attempted to take a longer term outlook for our two largest holdings - a ton of risks to consider that are stated when looking this far out in tech world...

hxxps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/where-will-microsoft-stock-be-in-3-years/ar-BB1i4H1t

hxxps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-bull-case-for-nvda-stock-how-nvidia-could-be-worth-1600-by-2027/ar-BB1ieuy0

dyor and no advice

[takeiteasy] 13/2/2024 13:15

Microsoft’s AI growth is helping its cloud business weaken Amazon’s lead
PUBLISHED MON, FEB 12 20248:30 AM ESTUPDATED MON, FEB 12 KEY POINTS
Microsoft’s cloud is growing significantly faster than Amazon Web Services of late, thanks in part to its cozy OpenAI relationship.
Analysts estimate Azure, which was about half as big as AWS five years ago, is now three-quarters its size.
Revenue at Azure increased 30% in the quarter, compared with 13% year-over-year growth at AWS.

dyor etc

[takeiteasy] 13/2/2024 05:27

Cadence (CDNS) and Arista Networks both top 10 holdings reported last night both ahead of analyst estimates

CDNS reported Q4 2023 adjusted earnings per share of $1.38 on revenue of $1.07B. Analysts had been expecting the company to earn $1.33 per share on revenue of $1.06B. “We had a strong finish to the year, with growth across all our businesses in 2023,” Cadence (CDNS) finance chief John Wall said in a statement.
Wall noted that CDNS' year-end backlog of $6B and current remaining performance obligations (a key revenue metric) of $3.2B were both records for the company.

Arista Network reported Monday fourth-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates. The networking equipment company reported EPS of $2.08 on revenue of $1.54 billion, beating estimates for $1.70 a share and $1.53B, respectively.
For Q1, the company forecasts revenue of $1.52B to $1.56B, in-line with Wall Street expectations for $1.53B.

dyor and no advice -

added nasdaq100 to the earlier 1 year data comparison above as context, not that I think we are specifically tracking this reference point, but it is the one that is most discussed and known I suspect

[takeiteasy] 12/2/2024 17:45

More interesting for anyone who likes more detailed analysis of risk points, for the 3 tech ITs from trustnet:
volatility scores: MNL 22.6, PCT 20, ATT 22.04
positive alpha: MNL 54.51, PCT 11.4, ATT 10.63

So we can in effect praise our managers for generating appreciably more investment alpha (returns above benchmark) whilst taking broadly similar levels of risk (volatility) with IT tech peers- invesmtment nirvana for active manager and in my book an exceptional result :)
dyor and no advice...

(SMT produced negative alpha of -12 with a volatility of 26)

[shavian] 12/2/2024 16:36

Duh! None so blind as cannot see!

[scottishfield] 12/2/2024 16:21

It's on the list Shavian, nr 3.