Friday File: Benchmarked Returns, Some Clunker Updates, and Coinbase

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | April 16, 2021 6:21 pm

Checking out recently weak MILE, WRAP and INTZ... plus a little buying, some updates on crypto investment valuations, and much more...

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Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2021/04/friday-file-annualized-returns-some-clunker-updates-and-coinbase/


46 responses to “Friday File: Benchmarked Returns, Some Clunker Updates, and Coinbase”

  1. valentinoamoro says:

    Thank you for the excellent writeup and the part about INTZ. My doubts about INTZ stem from their very broad claims about Shield. As a software engineer with nearly 20 years of experience, including in security, some of the claims seem very far fetched. I am an investor at 24 dollars and have taken a bit of a hit on this, but its a speculation for me.

  2. david222 says:

    In re: INTZ, whether Kimberly-Clark is getting Shield at a huge discount or even free as opposed to paying full price is largely irrelevant as to the efficacy of the product. No company- and certainly not one of the stature of Kimberly-Clark- is going to launch a cyber security product that they don’t have a ton of confidence in.

  3. bobennett229 says:

    A Google sheets file might be a more convenient way to keep a watchlist, instead of having to manually update price. ie,
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EafKlya4yAu6-QxKRS9x5w4G3Zl546h_Gi-PvsImNxw/edit#gid=157757719

  4. ytse says:

    Dear Travis,
    Fruits for thought:
    Can you imagine only if 10 % of US corporations hold Bitcoin as asset reserve. Bitcoin price will stay high for a long time( supply and demand ). Why I say that? Cash is steady but de-appreciated in value over time, Bitcoin is very volatile but appreciated in value over time. 10% will not hurt the companies’ bottom line, will it?
    I only hold cryto related securities.

  5. ytse says:

    I have VYGVF and BRPHF etc and etc.
    I forgot to mention one more thing:
    BBKCF rises and falls, yet through it all , this much remains $3.20.
    It held its price steadily better than V & B this wild week!

  6. sandmain says:

    Hi Travis, Thank you for the highly informative update as usual. What are your thoughts on the battery storage tech from STEM Inc (#STPK). They seem to have gathered some fan-following among the investing newsletters recently, including Motley fool and Banyan Hill.

  7. Cabron says:

    Travis, I saw you mention you loaned shares, so I looked up how I could do it . . . and found out I already have! Someone borrowed MILE shares from me . . . so I guess I encouraged the shorts . . Haha.

    My MJ shares have been borrowed from the time I bought them last Aug, so someone got a good squeezing when the stock more than doubled 🙂

  8. ianshearer says:

    I agree with the Quantumscape skeptics. I have taken a keen interest in the technology to improve battery life ever since I was told the Li-on battery connected to my PV array would last 5 years (maybe 10). If it only last 5 years it wont have paid for itself in electricity bill reduction. The ranking customers who are putting their money behind the research like Toyota and Samsung seem to be backing the improved wet battery components approach of Novonix, or the upscaling of solid electrolyte cells of Ilika. They are not either/or. Both could work. Moreover both have proved their technology which Quantumscape does not appear to have done.

  9. sai_aktien says:

    Hello Travis,

    Whenever I click on the link to any article of yours from the newsletter in Gmail and then login, I’m taken to the homepage and have to find the article once again. It would be great if, after the login, I still remain in the article and am not redirected.

  10. emanigol says:

    I simply do not get the Boston Omaha concept. What is it if not a simple portfolio? They do not seem to have the capital to meaningfully invest in any given company. Buffett buys a gazillion of shares, then gets his man on the Board, then starts influencing the business; his implied power is always there like an “Icahn Lite”. Cathie Wood of Ark develops actively managed funds with the promise of creative disruptors. What is the promise of Boston Omaha?

  11. bobennett229 says:

    This is probably common after a short report, but thought I’d share.
    (I’m not even in the stock but have them on a watchlist that I get news for).

    Kaskela Law LLC Announces Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit Against Intrusion Inc. (INTZ) and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm

    ——–
    $INTZ INTZ CLASS ACTION NOTICE: Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Files Securities Fraud Lawsuit Against Intrusion Inc.
    ——–
    $INTZ INTRUSTION ALERT: Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is Investigating Intrusion, Inc. on Behalf of Intrusion Stockholders and Encourages Investors to Contact the Firm

  12. dfigueroad22 says:

    Thank you for the Friday file Travis, much appreciated!

    I have a question, where do you get your news from? I ask because I tried to find news on WRAP and INTZ but couldn’t find anything as detailed as what you write about. Are you using a paid news subscriptions or which sources would be best? Thank you!

  13. positiveme says:

    Good morning, I am still pretty new to the stock market and learning every day and have made some very good choices. I am curious on the XRP that I heard about the other day from a friend. Do you have any information or advice on this ? My gut told me not to buy crypto currency when it started and I still feel it is borderline evil owned … not sure if this feels right or not. Soooooo moving forward … is this XRP a good potential to start on to build some extra cash …. any insights are very welcome … remember this is something new for me so please be kind with your words lol Thank you … Bless you!

  14. abhinavsukumar says:

    Hi Travis
    I would appreciate it if you can give your feedback on Nano Dimension Ltd $NNDM if/when you have the chance.

  15. Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe says:

    Trade Note:

    Tiptree (TIPT) got above $11 for the first time since I’ve owned the stock, inspired by the revised S-1 for Fortegra that came out on Tuesday — it’s all still preliminary until we know how the IPO of that specialty insurance subsidiary goes (assuming it does) and what that means for the value of Tiptree’s majority stake in Fortegra, but it was mildly encouraging to see the first guess at an offering price ($17 per Fortegra share) and the estimate that they’ll be raising not $100 million, which was the placeholder number they used in the first S-1, but $162 million. Again, not necessarily a huge deal, these numbers might well change… but it makes it seem more real, and is mildly positive while we wait to see if and when this actual IPO happens.

    And in conjunction with that increased detail in the draft prospectus, they also provided draft Q1 numbers… so we now know that gross written premiums grew 29% in the first quarter, earned premiums grew 21%, the combined ratio fell further (which is good) to 91.5%, and adjusted net income grew 46%, with the adjusted return on equity going from 12.7% a year ago to 17.9% this quarter. So it seems this is a good time to bring Fortegra back to the public markets, but it’s still a tiny company and much will depend on how investors feel about a quiet little specialty insurance IPO when it happens. No word on when the IPO might happen, and no specific news from Tiptree, but things are rolling the right way for the moment, and Tiptree is now trading above book value for the first time since I bought shares a year and a half ago. You can never know the perfect time to buy or sell, but buying a decent business at half of book value is a good place to start… and having it double to trade at a meaningful premium to book value is probably a signal to take a little profit.

    I don’t know how the Fortegra IPO will go, or whether it will be great for Tiptree or just good, but even dominant extended warranty/specialty insurance companies often trade at only 1.5X book value or so, like Assurant (AIZ), so we should be cautious about expecting anything truly dramatic. Maybe Fortegra becomes the next Assurant, and book value is really the floor for the shares going forward, maybe not… and maybe it becomes the next RLI and builds to a giant premium over time, but probably not.

    The original reason to buy was that it was a decent company trading at a stiff discount to book value, with a reasonably attractive and experienced capital allocator at the helm, and that we were paid a rising dividend while we waited for the discount to close (as I thought it eventually would, given the decent and growing underlying businesses). The business is better now, the dividend is still solid but has not been raised in a year or so… but the discount is gone, too. I sold a bit more than half of my position today at $13.08, taking out my original cost basis plus a little profit, and will wait a bit to see how the Fortegra IPO goes before I decide what to do with the balance. This is still an extremely small company, and the range of possible outcomes is very wide from here — they could build the next great specialty insurer, they could blow it all on a bad investment in their very concentrated investment portfolio, and this is not a position where I have complete confidence in the strategy or the company’s management… I bought mostly because it was way too cheap, so logic tells me I should sell some because it’s no longer way too cheap. The details will show up in the next update to the Real Money Portfolio on Friday.

  16. legs1939 says:

    I am glad we are thinking alike. I also sold 1/2 of my shares. I did this before
    reading your article. Thanks for watching for us.

  17. bunion132 says:

    In the same week that Travis wrote about the positive outlook for UBER on this thread, I came across two news feed articles– from Investopedia and Barron’s — regarding the dominant ride-hailing company halfway around the globe. Both articles discussed Singapore-based company GRAB, a household name in 8 countries in Southeast Asia. It’s mobile “super app” corners over 70% of the ride-hailing market in the region, a 50% share in food and grocery deliveries, plus around 23% share of digital wallet payment processing.

    I am not sure if UBER ran into Regulatory problems or if it just could not penetrate the dominance of GRAB in that part of the world. Either way, UBER sold its business in the region but now owns over 27% of the Asian company plus a seat on the board for its CEO.

    Dubbed as “the largest SPAC merger ever” at $39.6 billion, GRAB is expected to be listed in the Nasdaq sometime in July of this year through a merger with holding company Altimeter Growth (ticker AGC).

    Unfortunately (for me), I read about this exciting merger-to-come and opened a small position in SPAC company AGC without realizing that US investor interest in SPACs had already begun to dwindle at about the same time.

    While unhappy with the lack of momentum and volatility of AGC right now, I also think it would be a shame to abandon this unicorn deal, plus the chance at a backdoor investment in UBER in one of the most populous (and young!) areas in this world.

    What would you advise in a situation like this?

  18. tonibmensching says:

    INTZ class action today…

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