Apologies if these are companies already discussed here, my search skills are poor and I could find no specific analysis of these companies. All three of these seem to me to be in the realm of this board’s purview – fast growers in the cloud/technology space including impressive ~1y advances in stock price.
I have some personal experience with Square from my day job – it’s allowed us to sell our products using a tablet at many different venues.
Any links to previous research appreciated, or tips on how to better search the board history.
Hi Kip, I used to be invested in Paycom and Splunk, but I no longer am. On the other hand, Square is one of my larger positions. If you go to the right side panel on any post on this board, you’ll see “additional information”. If you click on that it will direct you to a compilation of my end of month reports. There is an up-to-date report on Square in the May 2018 one, and a more extensive and fleshed out summary one in the end of April report.
Hope that helps,
Saul
To add, since this board is on the free side of Fooldom, you could go to Google and search: “Saul’s Investing” + square
That should bring up plenty of hits. Looking back at some earlier posts would probably be beneficial. For Square, there should be some decent posts from earlier in 2017, maybe earlier than that (but I just discovered this board in May 2017).
volfan84
Long SQ in large part thanks to this board. Position started with the exercising of a $26 SQ call option position.
I have to say that I am so impressed by you. I have watched over several years as you have taken time to answer questions that come in from everyone, and you always do it in a welcoming and helpful way.
I think that anyone with your record over the last year and a half could charge for their advice, but you continue to help people who want to learn and I have seen it improve everyone’s results as the board has grown into a very strong community.
I also appreciate that you take the time to limit the board from getting out of hand in non-relevant discussions. It is already to big to read every post, and it would crumble if every argument, etc. was allowed.
Thank you for your efforts and mentor-ship. I know that I have grown as an investor because of your humble guidance.
On March 1 this year I bought x-amount of shares at $45. Then on March 6 I bought about half as much more for $49. This was because of Saul (and I have to admit I shop a lot from food carts and local farmers markets . . ergo: doh! moment).
Personally I’d rate Square as speculative compared to competitor PayPal. PayPal offers similar services, is much better established, and has real earnings. PE at 49 is much better than that of Square.
Love PayPal. I use it to buy things and I use it to charge for credits on my dancing and surfing photos websites. An excellent ecommerce solution that is gaining more and more competition.
Square is a different puppy all together. It is the little white square thing (!) that sticks out of a farmers market iPhone and allows them to bill your credit card with one easy swipe. Square is the iPad the food cart vendor leans out and gives you to sign your CC purchase with your finger and add a tip or not.
John, I think you might have a dated view of SQ … they are certainly strong in the “farmers market” segment, but I see them a lot in store point of sale these days.
I was trying to illustrate the differences but still usefulness of both stocks.
Companies that offer solutions to relevant and current problems.
Now this is a huge—maybe even a hallucinated—logical jump, but one of these companies is going to figure out how to offer banking to the legal and medical pot dealers. At this time normal banks will not.
In Costa Rica the National banks will not allow Uber drivers to bank their money sonthe drivers all have PayPal ATM cards. Uber is not legal in Costa Rica but half as cheap as the Red Taxi’s.
is there a board consensus as to why the recent market price performance of SQ so completely outstrips PYPL???
My answer is hype.
Young companies seem to attract much interest. Most are heavily hyped when they IPO, and that sales pitch carries over for months if not years. If they succeed they have potential for large percentage gains. But risk and volatility are high. And plenty fail.
More mature companies with established earnings are less risky, but the same gain in sales/profits is less appreciated by investors. Those solid assets that increase stability also dilute the impact of new business.
Agree with ANT. In addition, simply look at the number of products that SQ has added in the last 8 months. This is what I like about all of our SAAS companies. They are constantly innovating and increasing their TAM and stickiness.
Agree with ANT. In addition, simply look at the number of products that SQ has added in the last 8 months. This is what I like about all of our SAAS companies. They are constantly innovating and increasing their TAM and stickiness.
Good points Texmex.
Probably the one other crystalising event between SQ and PayPal was when SQ’s cash app downloads and usage blew past PayPal’s Venmo app which had been their big hope for future monetisation. That news item got a lot of coverage and resulted in much head to head comparisons.
I do actually think that the iZettle is a possible contender for one of SQ’s core markets (their POS device), if they can roll it out beyond their Eurocentric geographic presence; so I’m not counting PayPal down and out on this yet but my money is in SQ and I never felt enough compulsion to switch from SQ to PayPal or even take another stake in PayPal as long as SQ was doing its thing.