Behind The Idea

Sum of the parts stories. Legacy PC makers. Investing with Michael Dell. Those are three things that, over the past decade, have caused investors heartburn. Thomas Lott published a top idea last week that comes out tomorrow on Dell which combines each of those elements. The combination of the legacy Dell business, its acquired EMC business, and the 80.6% stake in VMWare makes for a compelling value, he argues. And yet, he's not the first to make that argument, and DELL has languished meanwhile. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) operates at the intersection of health care and retail. While it appears safer than many retailers, its performance has been familiarly poor. We look at the work of Trapping Value, who has been following the company for nearly two years with a focus on the bullish opportunity. We look at the changing thesis, the reimbursement pressures Walgreens faces, the pressures it's had holding on in face of a changing climate, and whether a low multiple makes up for that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cars.com (CARS) drew a surprising deal of interest from the Seeking Alpha community, which made it clear that we hadn't dug deeply enough. So we're revisiting it with one of the commenters on that article, CBanks40, a.k.a Cliff Banks. President and founder of the Banks Report, an online report focused on the auto retail industry, he has a lot of experience following CARS and had a lot to say on the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of Behind the Idea continues the interview I conducted with Akram's Razor, author of The Razor's Edge and longtime tech investor and Seeking Alpha author. We have the show notes below, and you can check out part one for background. Part one drilled in more to the PagerDuty (PD) short thesis, including why Atlassian (TEAM) has put a target on its smaller competitor, and what the limits are to PagerDuty's model and strategy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We speak with longtime Seeking Alpha author and tech investor Akram's Razor about the software as a service (SAAS) sector and how it is changing with everybody already a believer in the cloud and subscription models. We focus on PagerDuty and the newly public company's tough competitive landscape, and why Atlassian may be twisting the screws on it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this sneak peek episode of Let’s Talk ETFs, Seeking Alpha’s newest podcast dedicated to the burgeoning ETF space, host Jonathan Liss is joined by ExponentialsETFs CEO Phil Bak, to discuss Phil’s ‘aha’ ETF moment, after which he was hooked on ETFs for good. Tune in every Wednesday starting July 10 for full-length episodes of Let’s Talk ETFs. Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss a single episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've seen as big a rush of IPOs as there has been in some time. CrowdStrike appears to be one of the more impressive ones, though it's also fully valued. The company claims to have a better model for cybersecurity, involving more of an end-to-end service that is adapted to the cloud. We try to understand whether the company's moat is knowable for a non-tech expert, and how we might inform ourselves of that as general investors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let’s Talk ETFs is Seeking Alpha’s newest podcast. Each week, a different guest and host Jonathan Liss will take an in-depth look at a particular aspect of the rapidly evolving Exchange-Traded Fund space with a focus on how investors can best utilize ETFs to reach their investing goals. In addition, Let’s Talk ETFs will catch you up on all the most important ETF news including new fund launches and closures, top performers, and other notable ETF investing news from the previous week Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We break down a short idea from Seeking Alpha contributor BOOX Research on this week's Behind the Idea. The stock? Cars.com (CARS), a legacy media company spun off and trying to make it in a competitive web-driven world. The multiple is low, but is it low enough? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We return to discussing 3M Company (3M) with Michael Boyd, Seeking Alpha author and owner of Industrial Insights on the Seeking Alpha Marketplace. He was bearish about the company as of April, so we wanted to get his take on what led the company to this point, how they could change his mind, and what he is watching for going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mall and retail real estate investment trusts (REITs) don't on the surface seem like a likely battleground for investors on Seeking Alpha. They are a relatively obscure sector of the market, one layer abstracted from the underlying retail business. And the business of owning real estate and lending it out to retail companies seems boring enough. We talk about Simon Property Group (SPG) this week, and break down the intrigue around these companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's going on with 3M Company? The Q1 earnings report led to the company's worst month in at least a decade, and concerns over its future growth prospects. SA author Michael Boyd argued that this was overdue, and that there are more fundamental issues going on. Does that make sense? We review the company's recent challenges, its history of innovation, and its dividend-oriented investor base to try to find some answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Starbucks is one of the great American growth stories of the last 25-50 years. That story is starting to slow, and Seeking Alpha author Atlas Research argues that the stock is a short as management denies the reality. We break down the author's argument and whether the story - declining traffic, management mis-incentives, increasing competition - checks out, and if so, what that means for the stock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We take a last bite at the apple with another discussion on Kinder Morgan. Seeking Alpha author Dividend Streamer, who has focused on Kinder Morgan in his Seeking Alpha time, discusses how he carves up the company's cash flow and what he sees as the company's enduring advantages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our first podcast on Kinder Morgan (KMI) two weeks ago was not super well-received, so we brought on one of our critics, Seeking Alpha author and current KMI bull Kirk Spano, to discuss the company further. We get into some of the criticisms we had of the company - its use of non-GAAP metrics and the underrating of its commodity pricing exposure - as well as some of the criticisms readers had of us. Kirk also lays out his bull case for the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trupanion sparks bulls' and bears' passions even as it takes care of our cats and dogs. We bring on The CrickAnt, a Seeking Alpha author who focuses on insurance companies, to break down Trupanion's positioning and the particularities of the insurance industry. He highlights the biggest challenge the company faces - the need to gain market share while also increasing its bottom line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kinder Morgan (KMI), one of the unsung market stories of this decade, is on the comeback trail. We look at recent coverage on the stock as well as a company presentation from March and notice a few familiar themes that remind us of 2013 or 2014, before the crash in the stock happened. Have investors learned their lesson from last time around, and has the company? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You either get having pets or you don't. The same can be said for the Trupanion (TRUP) bull and bear cases - the true believers are able to produce pages of compelling research making their case either way, unable to sway one another. We start with a bearish article which picks apart the bull case as a way into the stock. We look at what the right category for Trupanion is, whether its effect on the petcare world will be positive in the end, and where that leaves the company and the stock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We round out our Boeing 737 MAX 8 related coverage by speaking to a pilot. Mike interviews his friend Matt, who flies for a US airline. He shares his insights on the mechanics of flying and what might go wrong, and so what investors might want to watch for as the 737 MAX investigations continue. He also breaks down the difference between Airbus and Boeing, which really comes down to a stance on how to best insure safety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boeing continues to grab headlines as the hows and whys of the recent Ethiopian Air crash are dissected by various authorities. Madhu Unnikrishnan, editor of Skift Airline Weekly, joins Mike Taylor and shares his views on the development of the 737 MAX 8, what is reasonable to expect from the review process, and how big of an impact these events might have on the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices