This isn’t news. And yet, just a month or so ago, AYX turned in a quarter where their growth accelerated (to 54%)
Bear,
How sticky you think AYX products are?
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Hi MountainDog,
Thanks for the post. I too noticed Microsoft’s foray into Alteryx’ space a couple weeks ago, but was away so didn’t look too much into it.
Then I got home, double-checked the last quarter’s results, and put the news in the same box as all the news for NVIDIA-killers, and the news of Google moving into HCI and killing Nutanix (still to-be-decided but I’ve put my money where my mouth is by buying calls for the first time ever).
Most of your post regards competitors that have been in the game for years. That hasn’t stopped Alteryx flourishing. Dreamer has it spot on. It’s important to be on the look-out for potential threats and disruptors, but we’re not going to be chased out of our holdings by announcements of a company wanting a slice of the pie. When the competitors actually start to take a significant slice of the pie so as to markedly slow the growth of AYX, then let’s talk. (e.g. Is this a trend that will continue or is this a slight hiccup of AYX, they’ve corrected it, and they’ll continue to grow rapidly.)
One day we’ll experience a non-market-wide drop of 20-30%, on real news, caused by a thesis change, and that will be the time to sell. That will hurt. Loss hurts more than gain. Can’t stop it hurting, just have to be aware of it. But before that happens, if we’re chased out too early we’ll miss out on triple digit returns.
Your argument - MSFT, with its reputation and significantly cheaper product, will seriously hurt AYX. So much so that you’re shorted AYX. Wow man! I’d wish you luck with that except I’m long AYX. That just seems ballsy. This is a story at the moment. Anyway, back to the point. MSFT earnings is a couple weeks before AYX. Do you think MSFT will break-down how well their Power BI Pro product is doing? Will there be some inferable data we can obtain from that in regards to AYX’ market?
Ben
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This is not the first time you have thrown “you are a short” at someone with negative view. It still baffles me why you do that.
Hi Kingram,
What I actually said was NOT that “you are a short.” What I said is “It certainly raises suspicions that you are a short who joined the Fool simply to spread fear…”
Now Kingram, if a guy signs up on Motley Fool for the first time yesterday, in order to make his first post a short attack on a stock, he may be all innocent, and just trying to help us out like he says, but if signing up and immediately posting a short attack doesn’t “raise suspicions” to you, you are blinding yourself (or just trying to find something to criticize me about).
I, on the other hand, as the host of the board, felt an obligation to point out to others who might not realize it, that this was this guy’s first post ever on the Motley Fool, and that it certainly was “suspicious,” at least.
Saul
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just trying to find something to criticize me about
Not at all. I just pointed out you have been sensitive about negative comments and quick to question the posters motive as “short”. You have done that to me too. Not a criticism, just saying don’t have to be suspicious or view it too negatively.
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Not at all. I just pointed out you have been sensitive about negative comments and quick to question the posters motive as “short”. You have done that to me too. Not a criticism, just saying don’t have to be suspicious or view it too negatively.
King:
Saul is spot on:
As a former AYX long, I have been a seller of AYX shares
my primary bearish rationale
valuation will prove unsustainable.
And then to be concluded by this:
Note: The author of this post presently has a position in securities of this issuer and may trade in and out of any such positions at any time without notice. The author makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the data or opinions contained herein.
Surely you don’t think he is trading in long???
He is shorting the stock.
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Thank you for the post. I’m always open to hear the other side, as I try to not to fall in love with a stock.
One of the key items I have been learning on this board is to pull the trigger on a stock that disappoints, or even faintly looks like it might disappoint on future growth. A good case in point is SHOP. Many of us either lightened our holdings, or sold out based on declining growth rates. Saul has a sixth sense on many of his stocks, and I want to build that same skill through listening to all sides of a stock’s story.
I have often found that listening to shorts, or those with a different perspective helps me define why I like a stock. When shorts are proven wrong by earnings, my confidence in that stock increases. Some of my best long term holds (Netflix, Amazon) had plenty of negative press (still do), yet they keep on proving them wrong. Stocks get in my high confidence holding by demonstrating results.
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Surely you don’t think he is trading in long???
He is shorting the stock.
I don’t mind short sellers, it’s part of the game. I do mind unethical short raids. I’m not saying this one is but I am saying it looked suspicious. The short seller has a psychological advantage over the long, the fear of losing is stonger than the pleasure of gaining. Boiler plate short raids are built with that in mind.
A post oozing charm and altruism like this one sounds all sorts of alarm bells for me. Sorry but that’s the way I’m wired. YMMV.
Yes, thanks, I posted it because I wanted to be helpful to a board full of what appear to be some pretty nice folks trying to understand their companies and compound their savings. I had read this board on and off for a while, and had seen some very good technical and industry commentary on other companies, and decided to contribute my research and opinions here.
https://discussion.fool.com/yes-thanks-i-posted-it-because-i-wan…
Denny Schlesinger
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He is shorting the stock.
So what? Are you questioning anyone posting when they declare they own the shares or long? No, so shorting is just a market activity. No need to view it with negatively.
There are 60 million shares and 5 million shares outstanding and a market cap of $3B, in other words the stock price is not going to be moved by a post on this board.
On the other hand, if you shut all views that doesn’t agree then that is not healthy.
All I am saying no need to be too paranoid.
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As for who needs a Ferrari, everyone who sees their rivals driving one. There’s no standing still in this competitive environment. If you’re competitors are driving Ferrari’s and you’re in VW you’ll be left in the dust.
It is true in some areas of business that small differences in productivity are perceived of as competitive advantage and drive changes.
With software, not so much. If the current system does what is being asked of it, then it can be hard to convince people to spend money on a system that gives more because there is no perception of more being better. Software is a very weird discipline where there are 1000 to 1 documented differences in productivity between shops and yet the shops at the bottom of that gradient don’t change. Admittedly, it is sometimes expensive to change, e.g., a massive COBOL system. But, one would think the motivations were huge, but the pace of change is slow.
If anyone would ever come up with a system that would read COBOL and spit out well engineered code in modern language, it would be an incredible product. I know some of the people who have tried and failed.
So what? Are you questioning anyone posting when they declare they own the shares or long? No, so shorting is just a market activity. No need to view it with negatively.
King:
I wont clutter this thread up after this but you seem rather defensive of this short. I am merely pointing out that Saul is correct…he is short AYX.
As regards his argument, I don’t see anything new that has not already been discussed ad nauseum at the NPI…I know because I have been round and round with Tinker on these exact issues.
But you cannot ignore a poster’s motivation to come here out of the blue who is clearly short AYX at a time when the stock is at risk from a TA perspective:
http://www.stockta.com/cgi-bin/analysis.pl?symb=AYX&cobr…
…and that happens to be trading at a P/S of 21.
Short sellers identify these type of stocks to sow doubt…it is a recipe used from the likes of Citron.
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Yes, but the point is not that some of the issues might have been discussed on another board and the point is not that he might be short, the real point is that his point of view was perfectly reasonable and worthy of discussion.
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Short sellers identify these type of stocks to sow doubt…it is a recipe used from the likes of Citron.
I agreed with some of the views raised by Citron on UBNT. There were red flags and what not. However, I have maintained my small position and glad to see it double.
I understand the FUD but the impact of greed is seems to be implicitly accepted (may be capital markets work because of greed 
) but fear is viewed negatively.
Tamhas,
Yeah, I think we’re both right to an extent. When I retired 8 years ago the company I worked at had spent an enormous amount of money overhauling all there mainline engineering and manufacturing systems. It was not by any means just a matter if bringing in modern code, it was process change on the floor and business practices as well. And even after all was said and done, there was still some serial batch and COBOL/IMS engineering applications that were left in place. They did what they needed to do, they had regulatory certification and there was no perceived benefit in replacing them.
But AYX is a different critter. It is a BI tool like no other. MountainDog posits that while that might have been true it is becoming less true due to competition. Maybe . . .
Business intelligence via data analysis offers a great deal more than small differences in productivity. It can provide the means for taking market share. It can provide the means for maximizing the rewards of laser focused capital allocation. And can help determine where to put R&D efforts. So on and so forth, we’re not just talking about small incremental productivity improvements and we’re most certainly not talking about replacing an antiquated yet functional COBOL application (or in this case more likely FORTRAN app) with something new, shiney and expensive.
I’ve been long AYX less than a year, I’ve bumped up my position four times and I’m up an average of 87%. And that’s after I sold my initial position due to a data spill which I thought might be devastating for this relatively young company. Saul was the voice of reason who helped me see that in fact it was not really a very serious issue. No one’s PI had been exposed, it was in fact a semi-public purchased data set that had been exposed due to human error. Not a good thing, but certainly nothing that would doom the company. Mia culpa, institute a process change, all’s well.
But as I said before, I’ve always been leery of AYX’s moat. And that is the essence of MountainDog’s post. It’s not that Ferrari is the only choice, there’s Aston Martin, Tesla, Lotus and so forth. There well might be cheaper very competitive vehicles. That’s the thing to watch for.
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I don’t think declaring long or short or offering alternative viewpoints is the problem. We’ve seen several people jump on the board temporarily and try to convince others to sell with stories of doom and gloom for less than honorable reasons, I’m not saying this happened this time but it does put your guard up and lower your tolerance for similar events. Saul has been here a long time and just like a police officer that deals with the worst of society he probably groows less tolerant over time. I know I would.
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Fear is not viewed as negativity, deliberately deceiving people for personal gain is viewed negatively. Not saying this was done this time but that is what is loathed.
deliberately deceiving people for personal gain is viewed negatively
Most CEO’s, long’s are doing that day in and day out. No questions, push-back. Just saying…
But as I said before, I’ve always been leery of AYX’s moat.
And, for me, this is composed of two parts, at least.
One of them is that “competitors”, like Tableau, will add features which cover part of what AYX does and, particularly existing Tableau users, will find that good enough. Current users of neither may also find it good enough because of the visualization features in Tableau. This is likely to occur in many products.
The other is that the latest feature additions to many of these products are often perceived to be of little value for many businesses. Look at something as mundane as Excel. For many companies, something like Excel 2010 does everything they want because the features which have been added since then are not compelling. The same is true of many other products where the new features added are for more edge cases that are not compelling for many businesses.
Tableau and Alteryx are clearly working together.
Alteryx has a conference, and one of the major sponsors is Tableau.
Tableau is having a conference at the end of this month, there are different levels of sponsors, but only one top level sponsor, Ayx.
Maybe they are splitting the market, Tableau is taking the low end and Alteryx is taking the high end. I don’t know.
What I do know is I trust this management team, they have earned it, and they clearly know Tableau very well, so the chance of Tableau taking market share from them is low. They clearly have a mutually beneficial relationship.
Also, as the amount of data is exploding, I think the need for more tools to analyze this data is growing with it.
They have stated in the conference call they aren’t running into much, if any, competition right now.
There will be competitors, and most likely the major ones will come out of left field.
This reminds me of NVDA, where there is constant talk of competitors, but no proof of any taking market share.
Jim
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“Most CEO’s, long’s are doing that day in and day out. No questions, push-back. Just saying…”
First of all I don’t believe most CEOs and longs do this day in nd day out. Secondly, just because someone else does something we should tolerate it from everybody is ridiculous. What a world we would live in if everyone felt that way.
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First of all I don’t believe most CEOs and longs do this day in nd day out
Believe what you want. When an analyst raises price target it is hailed and discussed in a positive note. No one is questioning his motives. On the other hand if an analyst cuts a price target, he is accused of manipulating the stock price, he is short, etc. The confirmation bias is strong. So if you are long, any negative opinion is not tolerated and if you are short, any positive news is unacceptable.
If you look for it, you can find it in this board.
Anyways, this is my last post on this topic.
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