Moody’s is a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs), a title bestowed by the SEC on a handful of credit rating agencies, the top 3 of whom act as an oligopoly in the US debt ratings gambit. As you well know, Moody’s (and S&P and Fitch) fell into disrepute during the last financial crisis when […]
Greenbrier and Trinity (TRN) act as a duopoly in the North American railcar industry, together accounting for nearly 80% of total backlog, with both players taking market share over the last decade (GBX: 13% in September 2006 -> 33% today; TRN: 36% -> 44%; ARII: 21% -> 6%). Needless to say, the railcar manufacturing and […]
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[SPGI – S&P Global, MSCI – MSCI Inc.] New indices are created every day as passive strategies flourish and investors invent ways to track exposures across asset classes, geographies, sectors, and market caps. They are stamped with the imprimatur of a well-known provider, validated with fresh pools of capital, and before long, become indispensable benchmarks or […]
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[DOOR – Masonite Intl] This stock got smoked last week post-earnings. DOOR is now back to where it was at the start of 2014, when the company was generating less than half the pre-tax cash profits it does today. If you’re unfamiliar, Masonite and Jen-Weld (JELD) are vertically integrated duopolists in the US residential interior door manufacturing […]
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[TRIP – Tripadvisor] This stock had a few crazy trading days last week, opening down 8% before closing up 2.5% on the first full trading day post-earning and then rallying again days later, apparently sparked by rustlings of a take-out [TRIP’s chairman Greg Maffei stoked such hopes a few months ago]. At least opposes this hypothetical […]
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For many years prior to 2012, Tripadvisor was accused of “over-monetizing” its site, bombarding visitors with “pop-up” windows that redirected visitors to the sites of its OTA and hotel ad partners. In late 2012/early 2013, TRIP began replacing the antiquated pop-up model with in-line meta (so visitors could compare rates across different OTA and hotel […]
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“People always think more about how new ground can be broken than they think about how existing institutions can be sustained or existing facilities can be maintained. It leads to a constant trap where we underinvest in old things, then old things disappoint us, then we feel a need for new things, then to satisfy […]
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It seems not too long ago, business arrangements between application providers were called partnerships….now they carry distended labels like platforms or ecosystems. Platforms come in various guises. Some, like eBay or AirBnB, don’t create products for direct consumption, but instead provide the connective tissue for various constituents of the platform to connect, taking a cut […]
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