1/ All you need to know about TSMC $TSM 2Q24 earnings results (management commentary and analysis):

🧵 2/ 2Q24 gross margin of 53.2% beat estimates and came in above the long-term goal of a consistent 53%.

2Q24 net income of NT $247.8 billion vs estimates of NT $235 billion.

Capex for 1H24 was #12.13 billion, implying a need to ramp capex in 2H24 to reach $28 billion for 2024, which is the low-end of the guidance.

I attended AWS's New York Summit this week that focuses on generative AI.

Here are 5 key points:

1. Bedrock is now one of the fastest growing AWS services in the last decade.

Bedrock now has 'tens of thousands' of AI or ML customers. 2. AWS stated that 96% of AI/ML unicorns and 90% of the 2024 Forbes AI 50 are running on AWS.

This shows that AWS's generative AI solutions are gaining traction with fast growing AI companies.

4 charts to explain why Apple $AAPL has rebounded so strongly and where it is likely to go:

(1/4) iPhone shipments expected to rebound back to growth based on supply chain checks. (2/4) Apple's services revenue contribution continues to grow.

Services revenues are relatively more defensive, and the growing services mix also improves Apple's margin profile.

Is CrowdStrike $CRWD expensive today?

Yes.

Is $CRWD deserving of its expensive valuation?

Yes.

Here's why: A thread🧵 1. The $PANW question

$CRWD has always been direct in addressing its competitors.

Given $PANW recent comments about needing to shift its strategy towards platformization given rogue behavior by vendors and some fatigue in spending in the space, $CRWD was once again rather direct in addressing this.

Should you buy Netflix after its 2Q23 results sell-off?

Here's a 🧵to summarize all you need to know about the $NFLX quarter: 1. 2Q23 results

- 2Q23 revenues came in softer than expected by just 1 percentage point.

- That said, operating income and EPS beat by 15 percentage points

- $NFLX added 5.9 million subscribers, which was way more than the 2.3 million new additions expected by the market.

I recently met the Sanjay, CFO of Upstart, along with the investor relations team.

Full article posted in Outperforming the Market. (Link below)

Here are the 5 key takeaways about $UPST from the meeting: 1. Upstart is a leading AI lender

Advantages include:

1. Upstart has a huge focus on AI/ML since inception and made huge investments in the area.

2. Upstart has a massive data set (1.3 million loans in 2022).

3. Upstart has the right talent needed to lead in AI lending.

We know that we should "Buy low and sell high".

But in reality, we often "Buy high and sell low".

Here are 6 ways to help you avoid the "Buy high and sell low" trap: 1. Know your game

You need to know what your risk tolerance is when it comes to investing.

If you have a low-risk tolerance and you are buying riskier companies, you do not know the game you are playing.

So, first, you got to ask yourself, what game are you playing?

Who will be the winner amongst the 3 cloud giants (AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform)?

To find out, we need to know the differences between each of them. $AMZN $MSFT $GOOG

A thread🧵 $AMZN AWS

Positives:

1. Widest range of services & tools, including a large ecosystem of 3rd party tools & services
2. High level of security and data protection
3. Large & established customer base
4. Advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities

$CRWD is just amazing:

"8 out of 10 times when an enterprise customer tests, they choose CrowdStrike over Microsoft and our win rates across all competitors remained strong in the quarter." Similar to $PANW, $CRWD seeing consolidation in their Falcon platform:

"In Q1, we closed over 50% more deals involving eight or more modules, compared to a year ago.

We believe this speaks to increasing customer demand for consolidation using the Falcon platform."

4 reasons why we are headed for a stock market pullback:

1. New interest rate regime:
- Higher for longer rates.
- 25-bps hike in June not priced in.

Link: seekingalpha.com/mp/1422-outper… 2. Bonds more attractive than equities today.

- The spread between the earnings yield of $SPX and bond yield of $TLT is approaching the lows of 2022.

- Bonds are looking increasingly attractive relative to equities.

I posted this on Outperforming the Market first and only intended for this to be published there.

But I think there are 3 crucial points mentioned here that investors in Sea Limited $SE are not taking into account.

These 3 points will change the way we value $SE in the future: 1. Firstly, as of 1Q23, revenue growth in e-commerce accelerated to 36% while adjusted EBITDA margin improved from -49% in the prior year to 10% in 1Q23.

This implies Sea Limited's $SE e-commerce segment can continue to grow despite its focus on profitability.

A thread🧵:

Contrarian stock idea: Charles Schwab $SCHW

What I will cover:
1. The real story behind $SCHW cash movements
2. Flows in net new assets during the height of the banking saga
3. Liquidity position, if a liquidity event occurs
4. Current discount to intrinsic value 1. $SCHW cash movements (1/2)

While bank runs and deposit flight has taken over the news, $SCHW has seen a steady overall client cash position over the course of 2022.

Market review and portfolio strategy:

A thread 🧵to summarize my views on:

- Potential impact from banks
- Fed policy
- Probability-based economic scenario
- Portfolio strategy (asset class, sector, geographies)

More in the free article linked:
seekingalpha.com/article/459091… 1. Potential impact from banks (1/3):

- While it seems like it, I don't think we will see a banking crisis like 2008.
- That said, lending standards will tighten as a result of the regional banking saga.
- These smaller regional banks play a large role in the real economy.

$ENVX was at the JPM Industrials Conference.

Here are my takeaways in a 🧵: Differentiated technology remains a competitive advantage of $ENVX.

Silicon can hold more lithium than graphite but it has issues with swelling and safety.

$ENVX can solve that with its units architecture and proprietary BrakeFlow technology