BlackRock has been moving to redefine its identity from a firm focused on index investing to a firm that emphasizes ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) investing. However, one organization argues that this move is less about doing something good for investors and more about enabling BlackRock to charge more in management fees.
(more…)Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Insurance Sector: Who’s Zoomin’ Who
Should the insurance sector be left for dead, or is there any semblance of value beneath the multi-layered COVID-19 ruble?
No sectors were immune from the March 2020 left-tail quickening that brought global equities to their knees in a snap reaction to the “Chinese virus” (POTUS’s term), COVID-19’s seemingly inevitable global roll-out, still underway.
(more…)Akazoo Shares Tank On Quintessential Capital’s Short Thesis
Gabriel Grego of Quintessential Capital presented his short thesis for music streaming company Akazoo SA (NASDAQ:SONG) at ValueWalk’s Contrarian Investor Virtual Conference today. He said the company looks like an accounting scheme because its users, subscribers, revenue and profit may be “profoundly overstated.”
Missed the event? Watch it here.
He argues that the company is a fraction of its claimed size and that it’s losing money. He found that the service is available in only a handful of countries and is rarely used. He also suspects round-tripping between Akazoo and foreign shell companies and found that its infrastructure is collapsing with offices closing and employees leaving “in droves.”
(more…)Valuing the S&P 500: Pre and Post-Virus
In a previous article, I presented a rough approximation to help illuminate how the Covid-19 outbreak might affect the value of American stocks as represented by the S&P 500 Index. Here I take a deeper drive and provide a full spreadsheet model. In the model, the virus has two fundamental effects. First, it depresses earnings next year and second it prevents earnings from ever meeting pre-virus expectations. The best way to see how this works is with reference to the graph below.
Harsh Truths: How To Get A Job As An Analyst
