🗞️ The Wrap: On Your Bike
Exercise bikes are riding their way back in to homes, Amazon have their own tax on the internet and an unlikely set of bots that call Kansas home. For what all this means, read on below. Plus our Best Buy, a look at stocks making highs and a Trader Teaser to stump the best.
5 stocks making 52 week highs
- Coeur Mining (CDE) + 22.1% in the last week
- DRDGold (DRD) + 19.29%
- Fresh Del Monte Produce (FDP) +18.5%
- Iamgold (IAG) +18.3%
- Steelcase (SCS) +13.9%
A cycle down Wall St
Home exercise bikes are no longer a place to hang your clothes. Courtesy of Peloton, a NY based exercise equipment and media company, its $2200 stationary bike, which is paired with a US$39 content subscription, is a fixture in Manhattan lofts. If you ask the CEO though, Peloton is offering more than just a bike and videos: “Peloton sells happiness”.
With its 500,000 customers, Peloton seeking an IPO valuation of approximately US$8b. You can take the stock for a spin this week when it lists, and no doubt, given recent 2019 IPOs, it won’t be a stationary ride!
Wizards of Oz
Who would have thought that humble Kansas would the mecca of the US HFT scene. We’ve spoken about bots, algos and all things HFTs before, but these big hitters fly under the radar.
TradeBot, founded in Kansas in 1999 by Dave Cummings, boasts an impressive resume; they account for 5% of all volume in the US market and hadn’t had a losing day from 2004 to 2018. Moreover, according to the CEO they “typically hold stocks for no longer than 11 seconds”.
Just to add to the impressive work of Dave Cummings, he parlayed his time at TradeBot into the development of a stock exchange in Kansas, BATS in 2005 which was ultimately acquired by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) for a lazy US$3.2b. Another day another dollar for the one Kansas City Royal…
Top 5 gainers
- ReneSola (SOL) +39.53% in the last week
- Arotech Corp (ARTX) +30.78%
- Dova Pharma (DOVA) +25.6%
- Tile Shop Holdings (TTS) +22.6%
- CoeurMining (CDE) +22.1%
Top 5 fallers
- Altaba (AABA) -72.3% in the last week
- Paretrum (TEUM)-35.6%
- Uxin (UXIN) -31.4%
- USA Technologies (USAT) -30.1%
- Nio (NIO) -29.6&
Ahead in the clouds
Valued at US$860b, Amazon is a giant. But it’s not the book selling that’s dominating their market cap. Their remote cloud computing service, Amazon Web Services (aka AWS), powers endless companies; from brand new startups to Netflix.
Just to offer their services, companies have to pay AWS to have their content supported. Even companies competing with Amazon rely on their services and power their growth. To exist on the internet, you’re going to have to give Amazon a cut, the “Amazon Tax”.
Forbes estimates that AWS is worth US$400bill as a standalone company. Of course, they don’t have complete control of the market. Microsoft and the Google crew offer alternative.
What we’re listening to | Land of the Giants: the Rise of Amazon
It’s time to plug in to the latest podcast being streamed across the office. The piece above gives you an idea of just how big Amazon is. This podcast by Vox tells the story of Amazon from the first book sold to its IPO and the pressures it faces from regulators today. The journey really shows just how closely Jeff Bezos lives by that quote above; Amazon keeps evolving.
It’s a lesson in business, a look into the future, a debate on ethics and above all entertaining! Unlike half our office, I started to see a stock for more than just a ticker and percentage sign.
Check it out here.
Trader teaser
Complete this sequence of letters: o, t, t, f, f, s, s, _, _, _.
First 3 to reply with the correct response get a 50% FX rebate on their next AUD to USD funding.
Best Buy | 3x Gold Bull ETF (JNUG) +33%
Another week, another leveraged commodity ETF appears in Best Buy. This trader added a nice 33% to their position as gold prices rallied in the last few days. Au-some returns on $JNUG as gold prices rallied in the past few days.
