RiverRoadPartners
@partners_road
Hedge fund manager. Bring any short idea; focus on frauds and fads. River Road Partners is a made up name for X, by the way, so don’t bother.
Forget FAANG. The new cluster to watch is OXDAM (OpenAI, xAI, DeepSeek, Anthropic, and META).
Often overlooked by investors, but this is a material underlying positive for financials & the US financial system: US banks currently hold significant excess capital. As of Q1 ‘25, large cap banks held $196B (16%) of capital above regulatory minimums.
From Bloomberg: According to Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, there is a "flight to crap" as individual investors are emboldened to engage in more risky types of investing. Great phrase - that describes perfectly what we’re seeing with garbage like $OPEN.
Has Zyn peaked? Q2 Zyn cans sold were 190M vs expectations of 203M. And the retailer “re-stock” of Zyn in the 1H happened faster than expected, so the gap vs sell-in vs sell-out makes this miss look even greater. Still a phenomenal asset, but will dent the $PM story if peaked.
The OBBBA will boost near-term FCF for big tech by restoring 100% bonus depreciation & immediate R&D expensing. $AMZN, $AAPL, $GOOGL, $META & $MSFT could collectively see billions in addit FCF in the next year, enhancing flexibility for M&A, innovation & shareholder returns.
First apparel, now jewelry: On the main 2nd-hand platforms in China (Plum & Zhuanzhuan primarily), iconic jewellery products for leading brands, such as Van Cleef, Cartier, Tiffany, Bulgari & Harry Winston, are trading at a discount (from -36% to -53%) relative to the primary mkt
1st job was at a FO. Owner told me “A-level executives only want to work w/ other A-levels. As the biz grows, you’ll bring in some B-levels. Problem is, B-levels know they’re B’s & so they hire C’s so they can stand out. C’s kill your biz.” The answer: is assessing management.
Another great observation from the Barry Diller book: “It’s far better to be discounted (in the public’s perception) than to be seen as anyone’s sure thing.”
There is one absolute certainty in any commercial enterprise: if not immediately excised, one poisonous personality will infect enough of the impressionable younger members of said enterprise to do lasting damage. Seen this in multiple hedge funds, & it happens unbelievably fast.
This is a serious problem: On the main second-hand platforms in China (Plum and Zhuanzhuan primarily), iconic handbags for leading brands, such as Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Dior, Chanel and Gucci, are trading at a discount ranging from -38% to -68% relative to the primary market.
Commercial lending (H8 data) is off to the best start since 2022.
SOX +59% in 3.5 mnths vs SPX +24% (35% outperf). In normal semi upcycle SOX outperforms by 105% over 26 mnths. So SOX has captured 1/3rd of upcycle in 13% of normal time. Aggressive. Data from Lipacis - good observation, Mark.
For the uranium bulls out there: the promise of domestic nuclear has reinvigorated interest in thorium, an alternative to uranium as a reactor fuel and one with more plentiful US deposits.
Bloomberg’s daily warning that the market is on the verge of an imminent, cataclysmic collapse: Market Resilience Challenged by Trump’s Weekend Tariff Salvo. They can just taste it.