Bert Hochfeld is certainly the most popular tech analyst among the readers of this board, and for good reason. Last year around the time of the SaaS sector rotation, I finally bit the bullet and bought a subscription to his Ticker Target newsletter, and am glad I did. Beth Kindig is another tech analyst that I enjoy reading (her free articles), and her name comes up occasionally on this board. She runs a similar premium service to Bert, though it has several differences, which you can read about on her website, beth.technology. I’ve been impressed with everything I’ve read from her. She seems to be very knowledgeable about tech, top-notch, and anybody who reads SeekingAlpha knows how much junk there is out there. Her and Bert are very different – she’s in her 30s in SF, and he’s in his 70s in NYC. One reason I haven’t paid for her premium service yet is because I already have SA, RB, and TT, and read this board daily. I might sign up when one or more of these expire. But I also might pass, as it’s $500/year, much more than Bert’s. However, she has called the top 3 of 5 tech stocks this year (INSG, SHOP, ZM), two of which aren’t held by most people on this board. https://twitter.com/Beth_Kindig/status/1258151847635738625?. If INSG rings a bell, it was discussed here a few weeks ago: https://discussion.fool.com/insg-34477004.aspx.
First, an OT question that I’ve been wanting to ask for months. If anyone is a subscriber to both Bert’s and Beth’s premium services, there’s a good chance that they also follow this board. So let me ask those folks: Is there one of these services that you prefer over the other, and if so, why? What do you see as the the pros and cons of one vs. the other? If you had to pick one, which would it be?
But that’s not the main point of this post. Nor is the following, but I’m including it because it’s of general interest to this board. Beth has written free articles on ROKU and TTD this week, which should interest a lot of you. Here’s the one on TTD (a long time favorite of hers, which which she’s no longer recommending), which is especially relevant because they post earnings tomorrow (Thurs 5/8):
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethkindig/2020/04/30/the-trade…
“To be transparent, I had predicted ad-tech to be one of the best tech trends in 2020. This prediction came true as January and February were record months for ad revenue. However, the story has changed now that large brands are reducing ad spend, or as Google recently said in their earnings report, March `experiences a significant and sudden slowdown in ad revenues.'”
She also has an article that’s worth reading on ROKU, which she’s been very bullish on since its IPO. Since I don’t think this was mentioned in Saul’s “A reassessment of Roku” thread last week, I’ll post the link here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethkindig/2020/04/30/will-roku…
Anyways, this is also not what this post is about. I follow Beth on Twitter, and was caught off-guard by a very surprising response to one of her tweets this evening:
https://twitter.com/togepi420/status/1258155910850998272. Note the following exchange:
@togepi420: good call on alteryx
@boomorbust109: You have a link to the bearish article on $AYX?
@Beth_Kindig: No, was in a note to premium subs!
Reminder: one of the Rules of this Board is No Blabbing! This information is for her paid subscribers only, so if you know what she wrote, do not share it here!
That, along with the following observation that Klay2 just posted (post #66675):
Believe or not, AYX is one of the only few high flyer SaaS stocks that didn’t perform. The other one I can think of is PAYC.
OKTA, MDB, TWLO, ZS, SHOP, FSLY, TTD, COUP, TWLO, etc., are all doing great.
There are so many wonderful things about this board, I’ve learned a ton and am eternally grateful to Saul et al. As powerful as the crowdsourcing method is, it can lead to having certain blinders. And so I can’t help but wonder what is Beth Kindig seeing about AYX that we aren’t? If this were some nameless SA author preaching value over growth, like why ZM should be shorted (LOL!), etc., I wouldn’t blink an eye. But Beth is one of the best tech analysts out there, and this, along with Klay2’s comment about AYX and PAYC being an outlier might not just be due to a 1-penny earnings miss, or them being “too transparent” during the CC. MajorFool20 (post #66662) pointed out decreasing revenue growth for Q1, but that info wasn’t available before this evening.
Usually there’s complete agreement between Beth, Bert, and this board for most of my double-digit positions. And if I was forced to go “all in” on only one stock for 5 years, it would be AYX. Since it’s my second largest holding at about 15%, I might just fork over $65 for a 30-day subscription to Beth’s site to see what she thinks about it. But I thought this was worth bringing to the attention of this board, because it seems like most of us on here own it, and there’s potentially something important that we’re missing. Perhaps others might like to check it out as well.
Matt
long (in order of size) ZM, AYX, CRWD, DDOG, TTD, TDOC, ROKU, OKTA, ESTC, WORK