What is everyone’s perspective re: increasing position size for ANET in part based on Bert’s article?
He writes in his article this morning about significant product upgrades, essentially Cisco lawsuit is over and that he plans to re-enter his position on a dip.
"…I do not intend to try to write any further in this article about the results of all of the lawsuits. It seems fair to say that from a business standpoint Arista won and it will not be subject to any additional business impediments. That is about all that is necessary to understand in assessing the investment merits of this company.
I must confess that I have not chosen to hold the shares I had initially bought for the entire run.
…I personally do not own the shares after my misguided sale. I will look for an entry point that isn’t a spike, although I might establish a position before earnings simply because of the strong likelihood of a beat of the size that makes a difference. The company has a significant short interest ratio at 9% and a relatively small float because of the high percentage of shares still held by insiders. I think it is a great longer-term commitment but I want to be careful on re-entering the name. I think Arista shares will produce significant positive alpha over the next year."
The author is Bert Hochfeld and he writes on Seeking Alpha about tech companies along with running a portfolio service of tech names.
You’ll have to endure some fairly long articles as he is quite verbose. However, you’ll likely find that his writing is very well balanced. He analyzes company metrics, risks and valuation quite thoroughly. In my opinion, he is a great source of information in the tech world and has been writing about it for years.
It is worth noting Bert is a convicted felon. You can view his disclosure about that on Seeking Alpha. It doesn’t bother me at all. I look at him for what he is worth. Again, a great source of information.
For high tech names, I think you’ll find his articles quite useful.
As someone mentioned before me, Bert Hochfeld is an ex-hedge fund manager who has a great deal of expertise on tech stocks (he worked for IBM, Memorex, Raytheon Data Systems, BMC Software, and was a tech analyst for a while). He writes rather incredible deep-dives on Seeking Alpha. His articles seem reliable, and well-balanced. He acknowledges what he doesn’t know. He’s a bit conservative about evaluation. He makes mistakes some times, but his articles about any tech stock that you are considering are worth reading. They are free and don’t require any special subscription. Here’s a link to his page on Seeking Alpha. It’s a great fund of knowledge.
Here’s another article containing a recommendation on ANET plus 4 other growth opportunities. Written by Bill Gunderson - Gunderson Capital Management.
The way the initiator of this thread wrote it sounded like he puts some weight on what ‘Bert wrote’. There are so many writers out there who sound reasonable and balanced and some may have novel views but it is hard for me to put too much credence on any of them. The ‘hey, it’s Bert’ comment sounds like it’s knowledge.
he is a convicted felon? what crime did he commit? pyramid scheme? traded on inside information? diverted money into his account or stole money? I would be somewhat less worried if it was a non-financial crime.
what do you consider a ‘full position’? why would you allocate more on one stock over the others? what is your process to make such determination?
The way the initiator of this thread wrote it sounded like he puts some weight on what ‘Bert wrote’.
I, too, put a lot of weight on what Bert writes. I read all of every article he writes on one of my stocks. He’s good.
There are so many writers out there who sound reasonable and balanced and some may have novel views but it is hard for me to put too much credence on any of them.
That sounds like a sensible skeptical point of view. You won’t know until you read some of his articles.
The ‘hey, it’s Bert’ comment sounds like it’s [common] knowledge.
I think it IS common knowledge among many on the board. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve EVER heard a criticism of one of Bert’s articles on the board as biased, self-serving, or superficial. That’s pretty amazing from a bunch like us.
what do you consider a ‘full position’?
Currently it’s between roughly 6% and 10% of my portfolio. I added a little today because of Bert’s write-up.