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hy27
2021-04-16
Food for thought
AppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps
hy27
2021-04-16
Food for thought .
Is Palantir Actually Overvalued?
hy27
2021-03-04
Probably will recover in the coming months.
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Go to Tiger App to see more news
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for thought","listText":"Food for thought","text":"Food for thought","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/347529137","repostId":"1125635474","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1125635474","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1618295945,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1125635474?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-04-13 14:39","market":"us","language":"en","title":"AppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1125635474","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"SummaryAppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 mil","content":"<p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>AppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 million shares.</li><li>At the high end of the IPO price range, the company is aiming to raise $2.1 billion, and it would be valued at $30.4 billion.</li><li>Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8.</li><li>The company has been a key beneficiary of the surging growth of popular game apps.</li><li>Despite strong sales growth, its operating margins worsened in 2020 due to higher operating expenses.</li></ul><p><b>Investment Thesis</b></p><p>AppLovin<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/APP\">AppLovin Corporation</a> is one of the key beneficiaries of the exploding demand for mobile apps, especially for mobile games. The company's sales growth has been surging in recent years as the company has benefited from both organic growth and has been aggressive in making numerous acquisitions in the past three years.</p><p>Most developers lack access to the marketing, monetization, and data analytics tools required to stand out among the more than 4.8 million mobile apps available on the Apple App Store(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Google Play Store(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL). The company's products and services help many app developers to scale up their business and create a successful app that can be sustained long term. This is where the company's capabilities in app development, marketing, and analytics really stand out.</p><p>There are more than 1.3 million mobile gaming apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.Mobile gamingaccounts for 39% of worldwide app downloads and for 72% of all app store consumer spend by value, according to Sensor Tower.</p><p>Although the company's operating margins declined in the past two years mainly due to higher operating expenses, we believe that the company's profit margins will turn around this year due to a combination of higher economies of scale and lower operating expenses as a percentage of revenues.</p><p><b>Comparable Companies Valuation Analysis</b></p><p>In the comparable companies valuation analysis, we used the following companies as comps to AppLovin:</p><ul><li>Unity Software (U)</li><li>Roblox Corp. (RBLX)</li><li>Activision Blizzard (ATVI)</li><li>Zynga (ZNGA)</li></ul><p>Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and implied target price per share of $99.8. This represents 17% upside from the high end of the IPO price range of $85. We have a POSITIVE view of the AppLovin IPO.</p><p>Our base case valuation of AppLovin is based on a 16x EV/S multiple (using 2021 sales estimate), which represents a 10% higher than the average EV/S multiple of the comps. It is also below the EV/S multiple of Unity Software and Roblox which trade at EV/S multiple of 26.8x and 19.2x, respectively.</p><p>The comps' average sales growth in 2020 and 2021 are similar to the sales growth rates of AppLovin in this period. Among the comps, Roblox has the highest sales growth and Activision has the lowest sales growth in 2020 and 2021. Overall, we have assumed higher sales growth for AppLovin versus its peers in 2021 and 2022 and this is one of main reasons why we have applied a 10% higher valuation multiple than the comps.</p><p>However, Roblox is trading at 19.2x EV/S in 2021 and we have applied a 16x EV/S multiple for AppLovin (17% lower valuation multiple than Roblox). We believe the market will attach a slightly higher valuation multiple for Roblox than AppLovin, mainly due to the former company's higher sales growth and operating margins in 2021, and its brand is more recognized worldwide.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b47032411f633c63c676152889baa874\" tg-width=\"553\" tg-height=\"350\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/3ea8b356b98201f398b48bd4d57e507a\" tg-width=\"552\" tg-height=\"455\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8a2dfe8877740e842bb1e143c157e39c\" tg-width=\"551\" tg-height=\"370\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0aec05aa4790c780a95e2527c62896e9\" tg-width=\"554\" tg-height=\"548\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8ee98f1dd0f1c0becb865f331a283068\" tg-width=\"550\" tg-height=\"340\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/96321e40b2bb290d968a20e0a3832de8\" tg-width=\"554\" tg-height=\"362\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/327d495d893132d12a74cc91d93df055\" tg-width=\"553\" tg-height=\"367\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><b>Income Statement Forecast</b></p><p>AppLovin generated sales of $1,451.1 million and an operating loss of $62.1 million in 2020. The company's sales have nearly tripled from 2018 to 2020. The company's operating margins declined from 50.1% in 2018 to 19.5% in 2019 and -4.3% in 2020. The major reasons for the lower operating margins are due to higher cost of sales, sales & marketing, R&D, and other operating expenses as a percentage of sales.</p><p>We estimate AppLovin to generate sales of $2.2 billion (up 51% YoY) and an operating profit of $65.2 million in 2021. From 2020 to 2025, we have assumed the company's sales to grow at a CAGR of 28.6%. We have also assumed the company's operating margin to turn positive to 3% in 2021 from -4.3% in 2020. We estimate its operating margins to improve further to 6.8% in 2022, 10.6% in 2023, and 17.8% in 2025. We estimate AppLovin to have sales of $5.1 billion and an operating profit of $0.9 billion in 2025.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4e58f808f42f4c3a1e238b587f637063\" tg-width=\"547\" tg-height=\"669\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1026d63d84ac8f26d8391d7e91317b9e\" tg-width=\"547\" tg-height=\"449\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b9bf6e155cbc281373a8fac78fd3e08b\" tg-width=\"547\" tg-height=\"488\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><b>Company Background</b></p><p>Thecompanyoriginally started its business helping customers to improve the smartphone customer experiences for all the users. In recent years, the company has become a much bigger player in the mobile gaming segment and it also helps developers to grow their users and improve the monetization of their apps.</p><p>According to IDC, the company's totalmarket opportunityis estimated to be $189 billion in 2020, growing to $283 billion in 2024, representing a CAGR of 10.6% in this period. This total market size of $184 billion was derived by adding the worldwide total in-app advertising revenue of $101 billion (including gaming and non-gaming in-app display, video, and other advertising, but excluding in-app search advertising) and worldwide direct game spending of $88 billion for 2020.</p><p>AppLovin has invested about $1 billion in 15 acquisitions and partnerships since 2018. It owns more than 200 free-to-play mobile games from 12 studios.AppLovinlaunched a gaming business unit called Lion Studios in July 2018. It also acquired a company called Max in September 2018. Max provides in-app bidding service, which is a type of advertising where mobile publishers can sell their ad inventory in an auction method). AppLovin also owns and operates gaming studios Machine Zone, Belka Games, PeopleFun and Firecraft Studios.</p><p>In February 2021, AppLovin signed an agreement to purchase Adjust for $1 billion (including $598 million in cash and $352 million in convertible securities, and an assumption of up to $40 million in debt). Adjust is a leading mobile app analytics& marketing products company in Germany. Adjust provides tools to prevent mobile advertising fraud and better measure the user base. This acquisition is expected to close in 1H 2021.</p><p>In the IPO prospectus, the company mentioned that it plans to use $75 million of its Class A common shares for charitable purposes. If the company raises $1 billion in the IPO, this would represent nearly 7.5% of total amount. This is a bit unusual to have this large number of shares allocated for charitable purposes. We applaud this move by the CEO and its senior management. Adam Foroughi, the co-founder and CEO of AppLovin, previously co-founded two advertising technology companies, Lifestreet Media Inc. and Social Hour Inc.</p><p><b>AppLovin (Key Metrics)</b></p><p>The table provides the company's key metrics. There has been a strong increase in the monthly active payers which jumped from 0.3 million in 2018 to 1.0 million in 2019 and 1.5 million in 2020. However, the enterprise clients declined from 192 in 2018 to 172 in 2020. The company defines its enterprise clients as third-party business clients from which it has collected more than $125,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months. Average revenue per monthly active payer increased from $11 in 2018 to $32 in 2019 and $41 in 2020.</p><p>The company's main businesses comprise of its platform and apps. Its platform business mainly includes AppLovin Core Technologies and AppLovin Software. Its apps consist of over 200 free-to-play mobile games in five genres, run by 12 studios including those owned by the company and also those it partners with. The five major game genres offering by the company include casual, hypercasual, match-three, midcore, and card/casino. No single game of the company contributed more than 16% of its total revenue in 2020.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0638b1ba5528bc65ee975156f3bcfd46\" tg-width=\"605\" tg-height=\"225\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Source: Company data</span></p><p>The company collects revenue from two sources including business clients and consumers. In 2020, business clients accounted for 49% of total revenue and consumers represented 51% of total revenue.</p><p><b>Business Clients:</b></p><ul><li>The company has a wide range of business clients including Facebook(NASDAQ:FB), Google, and a number of much smaller companies. It had 1,400 business clients at the end of 2020. Nearly 99% of the company's business revenue came from its 172 enterprise clients as of December 31, 2020. The company also had a solid customer retention rate of 118% in 2020 for its enterprise clients.</li><li>AppLovin Software is a comprehensive suite of tools for developers to get their mobile apps discovered and downloaded by the right users, optimize return on marketing spend, and maximize monetization of engagement. AppLovin Software reaches an audience of over 410 million users per day. The company's software solutions provide tools for mobile app developers to expand their businesses by optimizing and automating the marketing and monetization of their apps. Since inception, the company's platform has driven more than 6 billion mobile app installs.</li><li>The company's main software includes AppDiscovery and MAX. Business clients use AppDiscovery to automate, optimize, and manage their app user acquisition investments. They set marketing and user growth goals, and AppDiscovery optimizes their ad spend in an effort to achieve their return on advertising spend targets and other marketing objectives. AppDiscovery comprises the vast majority of revenue from its software.</li><li>Revenue is generated from the advertisers, typically on a performance-based, cost-per-install basis, and shared with the company's advertising publishers, typically on a cost per impression model. Business clients use MAX to optimize purchases of app ad inventory.</li><li>The Compass Analytics tool within MAX provides insights to manage against key performance indicators, understand the long-term value of users, and help manage profitability. Revenue from MAX is generated based on a percentage of client spend. Business clients that purchase advertising inventory from the company's Apps are able to target highly relevant users from its diverse and global portfolio of over 200 mobile games.</li></ul><p><b>Consumers:</b></p><ul><li>The company has also developed and invested in AppLovin Apps, which consist of a globally diversified portfolio of over 200 free-to-play mobile games. These Apps are accessed by nearly 32 million users every day. Consumer revenue is generated when the user of its apps makes an in-app purchase (IAP).</li><li>The company's apps are mostly free-to-play mobile games and generate consumer revenue through in-app purchase of virtual items which are used to enhance gameplay and improve the probabilities of the mobile game progression opportunities.</li><li>During the three months ended December 31, 2020, the company had an average of 2.1 million monthly active payers (MAPs) across its portfolio of apps. Over that period, the company had an average revenue per monthly active payer of $41.</li></ul><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/17a469e7db2359f56bb1fec2388f2826\" tg-width=\"555\" tg-height=\"454\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><b>Major Competitors</b></p><p>In the mobile games and other mobile game app related businesses, the major competitors include Unity Software, Activision Blizzard, Tencent Holdings(OTCPK:TCEHY), and Zynga. In the advertising platform business, the company's major competitors include Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon (AMZN). Many of these companies are also AppLovin's partners and customers. In addition to these mega companies, the company faces competition from thousands of smaller competitors worldwide.</p><p>Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Analysis</p><p>The company has a leveraged balance sheet. Net debt increased from $0.8 billion at the end of 2019 to $1.3 billion at the end of 2020. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio also rose from 260% at the end of 2019 to 315% at the end of 2020. After KKR invested in the company in 2018, it appears that AppLovin was advised to add more leverage and expand the business more aggressively through numerous acquisitions. Through this IPO, the company's balance sheet will become much stronger.</p><p>The company generated positive cash flow from operations and free cash flow in the past two years. Its cash flow from operations and free cash flow averaged $211 million and $207 million, respectively, in 2019 and 2020.</p><p><b>Conclusion</b></p><p>AppLovin is one of the key beneficiaries of the surging growth of game-related mobile apps. Our base case valuation of AppLovin is EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8, which is about 17% higher than the high end of the IPO price range. In recent months, some of the major game-related IPOs including Roblox and Unity Software have done really well, although their share prices have come down from their recent highs. AppLovin will likely be compared against these stocks.</p><p>Despite AppLovin's decline in operating margins in 2020 due to higher operating expenses, it is more likely that investors will focus on the company's ability to continue to scale up the business and generate higher sales growth. There remains some uncertainty in terms of how quickly the company is willing to focus on the probability at the expense of lower sales growth. In addition, there are some concerns about the recent weakening sentiment on the tech-related IPOs.</p>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>AppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-04-13 14:39 GMT+8 <a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4418129-applovin-capitalizing-growth-mobile-game-apps><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryAppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 million shares.At the high end of the IPO price range, the company is aiming to raise $2.1 billion, and...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4418129-applovin-capitalizing-growth-mobile-game-apps\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"APP":"AppLovin Corporation"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4418129-applovin-capitalizing-growth-mobile-game-apps","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1125635474","content_text":"SummaryAppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 million shares.At the high end of the IPO price range, the company is aiming to raise $2.1 billion, and it would be valued at $30.4 billion.Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8.The company has been a key beneficiary of the surging growth of popular game apps.Despite strong sales growth, its operating margins worsened in 2020 due to higher operating expenses.Investment ThesisAppLovinAppLovin Corporation is one of the key beneficiaries of the exploding demand for mobile apps, especially for mobile games. The company's sales growth has been surging in recent years as the company has benefited from both organic growth and has been aggressive in making numerous acquisitions in the past three years.Most developers lack access to the marketing, monetization, and data analytics tools required to stand out among the more than 4.8 million mobile apps available on the Apple App Store(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Google Play Store(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL). The company's products and services help many app developers to scale up their business and create a successful app that can be sustained long term. This is where the company's capabilities in app development, marketing, and analytics really stand out.There are more than 1.3 million mobile gaming apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.Mobile gamingaccounts for 39% of worldwide app downloads and for 72% of all app store consumer spend by value, according to Sensor Tower.Although the company's operating margins declined in the past two years mainly due to higher operating expenses, we believe that the company's profit margins will turn around this year due to a combination of higher economies of scale and lower operating expenses as a percentage of revenues.Comparable Companies Valuation AnalysisIn the comparable companies valuation analysis, we used the following companies as comps to AppLovin:Unity Software (U)Roblox Corp. (RBLX)Activision Blizzard (ATVI)Zynga (ZNGA)Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and implied target price per share of $99.8. This represents 17% upside from the high end of the IPO price range of $85. We have a POSITIVE view of the AppLovin IPO.Our base case valuation of AppLovin is based on a 16x EV/S multiple (using 2021 sales estimate), which represents a 10% higher than the average EV/S multiple of the comps. It is also below the EV/S multiple of Unity Software and Roblox which trade at EV/S multiple of 26.8x and 19.2x, respectively.The comps' average sales growth in 2020 and 2021 are similar to the sales growth rates of AppLovin in this period. Among the comps, Roblox has the highest sales growth and Activision has the lowest sales growth in 2020 and 2021. Overall, we have assumed higher sales growth for AppLovin versus its peers in 2021 and 2022 and this is one of main reasons why we have applied a 10% higher valuation multiple than the comps.However, Roblox is trading at 19.2x EV/S in 2021 and we have applied a 16x EV/S multiple for AppLovin (17% lower valuation multiple than Roblox). We believe the market will attach a slightly higher valuation multiple for Roblox than AppLovin, mainly due to the former company's higher sales growth and operating margins in 2021, and its brand is more recognized worldwide.Income Statement ForecastAppLovin generated sales of $1,451.1 million and an operating loss of $62.1 million in 2020. The company's sales have nearly tripled from 2018 to 2020. The company's operating margins declined from 50.1% in 2018 to 19.5% in 2019 and -4.3% in 2020. The major reasons for the lower operating margins are due to higher cost of sales, sales & marketing, R&D, and other operating expenses as a percentage of sales.We estimate AppLovin to generate sales of $2.2 billion (up 51% YoY) and an operating profit of $65.2 million in 2021. From 2020 to 2025, we have assumed the company's sales to grow at a CAGR of 28.6%. We have also assumed the company's operating margin to turn positive to 3% in 2021 from -4.3% in 2020. We estimate its operating margins to improve further to 6.8% in 2022, 10.6% in 2023, and 17.8% in 2025. We estimate AppLovin to have sales of $5.1 billion and an operating profit of $0.9 billion in 2025.Company BackgroundThecompanyoriginally started its business helping customers to improve the smartphone customer experiences for all the users. In recent years, the company has become a much bigger player in the mobile gaming segment and it also helps developers to grow their users and improve the monetization of their apps.According to IDC, the company's totalmarket opportunityis estimated to be $189 billion in 2020, growing to $283 billion in 2024, representing a CAGR of 10.6% in this period. This total market size of $184 billion was derived by adding the worldwide total in-app advertising revenue of $101 billion (including gaming and non-gaming in-app display, video, and other advertising, but excluding in-app search advertising) and worldwide direct game spending of $88 billion for 2020.AppLovin has invested about $1 billion in 15 acquisitions and partnerships since 2018. It owns more than 200 free-to-play mobile games from 12 studios.AppLovinlaunched a gaming business unit called Lion Studios in July 2018. It also acquired a company called Max in September 2018. Max provides in-app bidding service, which is a type of advertising where mobile publishers can sell their ad inventory in an auction method). AppLovin also owns and operates gaming studios Machine Zone, Belka Games, PeopleFun and Firecraft Studios.In February 2021, AppLovin signed an agreement to purchase Adjust for $1 billion (including $598 million in cash and $352 million in convertible securities, and an assumption of up to $40 million in debt). Adjust is a leading mobile app analytics& marketing products company in Germany. Adjust provides tools to prevent mobile advertising fraud and better measure the user base. This acquisition is expected to close in 1H 2021.In the IPO prospectus, the company mentioned that it plans to use $75 million of its Class A common shares for charitable purposes. If the company raises $1 billion in the IPO, this would represent nearly 7.5% of total amount. This is a bit unusual to have this large number of shares allocated for charitable purposes. We applaud this move by the CEO and its senior management. Adam Foroughi, the co-founder and CEO of AppLovin, previously co-founded two advertising technology companies, Lifestreet Media Inc. and Social Hour Inc.AppLovin (Key Metrics)The table provides the company's key metrics. There has been a strong increase in the monthly active payers which jumped from 0.3 million in 2018 to 1.0 million in 2019 and 1.5 million in 2020. However, the enterprise clients declined from 192 in 2018 to 172 in 2020. The company defines its enterprise clients as third-party business clients from which it has collected more than $125,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months. Average revenue per monthly active payer increased from $11 in 2018 to $32 in 2019 and $41 in 2020.The company's main businesses comprise of its platform and apps. Its platform business mainly includes AppLovin Core Technologies and AppLovin Software. Its apps consist of over 200 free-to-play mobile games in five genres, run by 12 studios including those owned by the company and also those it partners with. The five major game genres offering by the company include casual, hypercasual, match-three, midcore, and card/casino. No single game of the company contributed more than 16% of its total revenue in 2020.Source: Company dataThe company collects revenue from two sources including business clients and consumers. In 2020, business clients accounted for 49% of total revenue and consumers represented 51% of total revenue.Business Clients:The company has a wide range of business clients including Facebook(NASDAQ:FB), Google, and a number of much smaller companies. It had 1,400 business clients at the end of 2020. Nearly 99% of the company's business revenue came from its 172 enterprise clients as of December 31, 2020. The company also had a solid customer retention rate of 118% in 2020 for its enterprise clients.AppLovin Software is a comprehensive suite of tools for developers to get their mobile apps discovered and downloaded by the right users, optimize return on marketing spend, and maximize monetization of engagement. AppLovin Software reaches an audience of over 410 million users per day. The company's software solutions provide tools for mobile app developers to expand their businesses by optimizing and automating the marketing and monetization of their apps. Since inception, the company's platform has driven more than 6 billion mobile app installs.The company's main software includes AppDiscovery and MAX. Business clients use AppDiscovery to automate, optimize, and manage their app user acquisition investments. They set marketing and user growth goals, and AppDiscovery optimizes their ad spend in an effort to achieve their return on advertising spend targets and other marketing objectives. AppDiscovery comprises the vast majority of revenue from its software.Revenue is generated from the advertisers, typically on a performance-based, cost-per-install basis, and shared with the company's advertising publishers, typically on a cost per impression model. Business clients use MAX to optimize purchases of app ad inventory.The Compass Analytics tool within MAX provides insights to manage against key performance indicators, understand the long-term value of users, and help manage profitability. Revenue from MAX is generated based on a percentage of client spend. Business clients that purchase advertising inventory from the company's Apps are able to target highly relevant users from its diverse and global portfolio of over 200 mobile games.Consumers:The company has also developed and invested in AppLovin Apps, which consist of a globally diversified portfolio of over 200 free-to-play mobile games. These Apps are accessed by nearly 32 million users every day. Consumer revenue is generated when the user of its apps makes an in-app purchase (IAP).The company's apps are mostly free-to-play mobile games and generate consumer revenue through in-app purchase of virtual items which are used to enhance gameplay and improve the probabilities of the mobile game progression opportunities.During the three months ended December 31, 2020, the company had an average of 2.1 million monthly active payers (MAPs) across its portfolio of apps. Over that period, the company had an average revenue per monthly active payer of $41.Major CompetitorsIn the mobile games and other mobile game app related businesses, the major competitors include Unity Software, Activision Blizzard, Tencent Holdings(OTCPK:TCEHY), and Zynga. In the advertising platform business, the company's major competitors include Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon (AMZN). Many of these companies are also AppLovin's partners and customers. In addition to these mega companies, the company faces competition from thousands of smaller competitors worldwide.Balance Sheet and Cash Flow AnalysisThe company has a leveraged balance sheet. Net debt increased from $0.8 billion at the end of 2019 to $1.3 billion at the end of 2020. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio also rose from 260% at the end of 2019 to 315% at the end of 2020. After KKR invested in the company in 2018, it appears that AppLovin was advised to add more leverage and expand the business more aggressively through numerous acquisitions. Through this IPO, the company's balance sheet will become much stronger.The company generated positive cash flow from operations and free cash flow in the past two years. Its cash flow from operations and free cash flow averaged $211 million and $207 million, respectively, in 2019 and 2020.ConclusionAppLovin is one of the key beneficiaries of the surging growth of game-related mobile apps. Our base case valuation of AppLovin is EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8, which is about 17% higher than the high end of the IPO price range. In recent months, some of the major game-related IPOs including Roblox and Unity Software have done really well, although their share prices have come down from their recent highs. AppLovin will likely be compared against these stocks.Despite AppLovin's decline in operating margins in 2020 due to higher operating expenses, it is more likely that investors will focus on the company's ability to continue to scale up the business and generate higher sales growth. There remains some uncertainty in terms of how quickly the company is willing to focus on the probability at the expense of lower sales growth. In addition, there are some concerns about the recent weakening sentiment on the tech-related IPOs.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":644,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":347520554,"gmtCreate":1618502585578,"gmtModify":1704711976089,"author":{"id":"3560304315062593","authorId":"3560304315062593","name":"hy27","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3560304315062593","authorIdStr":"3560304315062593"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Food for thought .","listText":"Food for thought .","text":"Food for thought .","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/347520554","repostId":"1181372898","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1181372898","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1618501265,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1181372898?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-04-15 23:41","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Is Palantir Actually Overvalued?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1181372898","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.SummaryPalantir looks very expensive","content":"<p>(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/48094c753cf8466f8f6f524a7349fba1\" tg-width=\"658\" tg-height=\"395\"></p><p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>Palantir looks very expensive at first sight. But could that be justified?</li><li>The company looks a lot stronger than many other hyped-up growth stocks when it comes to margins, market positioning, etc.</li><li>We showcase ways to enter a position in Palantir at a more attractive price.</li></ul><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/534db15a589a6170b395a97ae7d469e8\" tg-width=\"768\" tg-height=\"418\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Photo by wildpixel/iStock via Getty Images</span></p><p><b>Article Thesis</b></p><p>Palantir (PLTR), at 150 times this year's expected earnings, looks very expensive. But when we take a closer look, the price might be justified, as Palantir has a compelling ultra-long-term growth outlook due to a strong position in an absolute growth market. Despite a seemingly very high valuation, Palantir's shares could be a solid long-term investment.</p><p><b>Palantir Is Not A Typical Stock I Like</b></p><p>In general, I am mostly focused on dividend-paying stocks that trade at reasonable or cheap valuations, with some \"growth at a reasonable price\" (GARP) added in. Stocks trading at 100 times forward earnings, or even higher than that, are not at all typical of what I like to write about, and what I personally invest in. I have been quite critical of many stocks that trade at what I believe are too-high valuations. Nevertheless, I see Palantir as a stock that has a lot of potential in the long run, and that seems worthy of consideration, despite a seemingly very high valuation.</p><p>The reasoning for why I like Palantir, despite it trading at a quite high valuation, rests on three main pillars:</p><p><b>1. Palantir is active in an absolute growth market that will grow for decades</b></p><p>Big data, data analysis, and artificial intelligence are not short-term trends that will play out in a couple of years, but rather megatrends that will most likely become ever more important. 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and likely even farther in the future, big data and artificial intelligence will still be growth markets.</p><p><b>2. Palantir has a very clear industry leadership position</b></p><p>Many hyped-up growth companies are active in a highly fought-over market, oftentimes there is no clear, large moat for first-movers and current market leaders. I believe that in Palantir's case, that is not true. The company has developed a wide range of products and offerings for customers that are very unique, and where competition is not looking like a major concern. On top of that, Palantir has established very strong connections with government agencies and the military, which will be hard to replicate for eventual competitors. This does, I believe, result in a high likelihood that Palantir will not only be the leading player in the near term, but that it will retain this position for a long time. I personally am not so sure about the future leadership position of other current hyped-up leaders, including Tesla (TSLA) in EVs, Beyond Meat (BYND) in plant-based meat alternatives, etc.</p><p><b>3. The industry Palantir is active in has great characteristics</b></p><p>Big data and artificial intelligence are not only absolute growth markets, they also, as part of the software/service tech industry, offer a range of highly compelling characteristics. First, the software industry has, on average, very high gross and operating margins. This is, at least partially, the result of relatively low proportional costs, as there is no expensive manufacturing infrastructure needed.High gross margins are one of the common traits shared by companies that are able to deliver strong long-term share price gains.</p><p>The software industry is also capital extensive, which means that free cash flows, on average, are relatively high. There is no need to build out a lot of expensive infrastructure such as manufacturing plants, which translates into attractive free cash generation that can be used for tuck-in acquisitions, debt reduction, etc.</p><p>Third, the software industry overall is not cyclical. As software is an essential part of our daily lives and of doing business, customers don't scale back their use of software during a recession or any other type of crisis. In Palantir's case, where government agencies are a major customer, resilience is even stronger. Compared to many other growth industries, including EVs, renewable energy, etc. these very attractive traits are very pronounced for software companies, including Palantir. As an example of the attractiveness of Palantir's business mode, let's look at its gross margins versus those of other hyped growth stocks:</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/bd5c147cb9babf998cfd35649f4cad22\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"470\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Clearly, Palantir is in a class of its own compared to Tesla, Beyond Meat, Peloton (PTON), or Canadian Solar (CSIQ) (as a stand-in for most solar and renewable stocks).</p><p><b>Palantir's Valuation - How High Is It?</b></p><p>Looking at current earnings per share estimates for this year, which stand at $0.16, Palantir is trading for around 150 times this year's earnings. That is, of course, an extremely high valuation in absolute terms.</p><p>However, it should be considered that Palantir is just beginning to generate positive net profits. Shortly after breaking even, net profits can't be expected to be very high yet. But due to two key reasons, Palantir's earnings should grow meaningfully in coming years. First, the nature of the market the company is active in will allow for strong revenue growth going forward. On top of that, thanks to the fact that Palantir generates very high gross margins, each additional dollar of revenue that the company generates in the future should help a lot in improving profitability. When a company like Palantir adds $1 billion in additional sales, that will do a lot more for its bottom line compared to most other companies, that won't see profits grow as much due to lower margins.</p><p>Analysts are thus, not surprisingly, forecasting strong earnings per share growth over the next two years:</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f4a7db46186418a049678d1ecf17ff30\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"436\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Whereas Palantir trades for around 150 times this year's earnings, the stock trades for 118 times 2022's earnings, and for 97 times 2023's earnings. Those aren't low valuations at all, but it can make sense to look at how companies such as Netflix (NFLX) or Amazon (AMZN) were valued in their younger days.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8c82732cfdc04638279f1d9e77e9c1e4\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"419\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Not too long ago, these companies were trading for 200-300 times net profits, despite having reached a much larger size already. Palantir, with stronger gross margins and a smaller size, is not trading for 200 or even 300 times net earnings. Since we all know that buying Amazon or Netflix five years ago was a great decision, Palantir's current valuation may indeed not be unreasonable.</p><p>When we assume that current estimates for 2023's net earnings are correct, and that Palantir will be able to grow its earnings per share by 25% a year through the 2020s, then net earnings would total $1.23 in 2030. Put a 35 times earnings multiple on that, and shares would be valued at $43, which would lead to annual returns of ~6%.</p><p>A 35 times earnings multiple may be on the conservative side still - after all, even a giant such as Amazon is trading at 72 times earnings today. Palantir may also be able to grow its earnings per share at a higher pace than 25% a year during the 2020s. Lastly, Palantir may be way more profitable in 2023 compared to what analysts are forecasting right now (after all, the company has easily beaten estimates in the past), which would lead to higher EPS in 2030 as well, assuming an unchanged growth rate. In a more bullish scenario, where Palantir earns $0.30 in 2023, grows its EPS by 30% a year through 2030 and trades at 40 times net earnings in 2030, the stock could be worth $75 nine years from now, delivering 200% in that scenario. I'm not saying that this will happen - no one can know that right now. But I believe that, with reasonable assumptions, it can be argued that Palantir's shares may not be all that overpriced right now.</p><p><b>How To Get Into Palantir At A Lower Price</b></p><p>For those that like the company, but that deem shares a little too expensive, selling covered calls or cash-secured puts could be an interesting choice. Due to a high implied volatility, option premiums are quite high. If you buy 100 shares at $25 and sell a $30 call with expiry in June 2022 at $6.30, you effectively entered a position at $18.70, or a 25% discount to the current price. There is a risk of shares getting called away, but even in that scenario, one would still generate a return of 45% ($36.30/$25) in 14 months, which would not at all be unattractive.</p><p>Similarly, entering a position via cash-secured puts (e.g. Jan 2022 puts with a strike price selling for$3.00right now) could be a way to get a sizeable discount versus the current share price.</p><p><b>Takeaway</b></p><p>At first sight, Palantir looks quite expensive, trading for around 150 times net earnings. But when we take a closer look, the above-average quality, strong growth outlook, and great market position, Palantir may well be worth its current price. I see it as one of the most favorable among the hyped-up growth stocks - which I see as overvalued in most cases - and believe that investors who buy Palantir's shares right here may very well do fine in the long run. I still believe that utilizing option strategies to enter a position at a lower effective price could be a good idea though, as this is highly rewarding thanks to very high option premiums.</p><p>Palantir looks quite expensive but unlike many other hyped-up names, it could be worth its current valuation, I believe. I believe that the stock is interesting for very long-term oriented investors that want to see Palantir's potential play out over the next decades.</p>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Is Palantir Actually Overvalued?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nIs Palantir Actually Overvalued?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-04-15 23:41 GMT+8 <a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419080-is-palantir-actually-overvalued><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.SummaryPalantir looks very expensive at first sight. But could that be justified?The company looks a lot stronger than many other hyped-...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419080-is-palantir-actually-overvalued\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"PLTR":"Palantir Technologies Inc."},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419080-is-palantir-actually-overvalued","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1181372898","content_text":"(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.SummaryPalantir looks very expensive at first sight. But could that be justified?The company looks a lot stronger than many other hyped-up growth stocks when it comes to margins, market positioning, etc.We showcase ways to enter a position in Palantir at a more attractive price.Photo by wildpixel/iStock via Getty ImagesArticle ThesisPalantir (PLTR), at 150 times this year's expected earnings, looks very expensive. But when we take a closer look, the price might be justified, as Palantir has a compelling ultra-long-term growth outlook due to a strong position in an absolute growth market. Despite a seemingly very high valuation, Palantir's shares could be a solid long-term investment.Palantir Is Not A Typical Stock I LikeIn general, I am mostly focused on dividend-paying stocks that trade at reasonable or cheap valuations, with some \"growth at a reasonable price\" (GARP) added in. Stocks trading at 100 times forward earnings, or even higher than that, are not at all typical of what I like to write about, and what I personally invest in. I have been quite critical of many stocks that trade at what I believe are too-high valuations. Nevertheless, I see Palantir as a stock that has a lot of potential in the long run, and that seems worthy of consideration, despite a seemingly very high valuation.The reasoning for why I like Palantir, despite it trading at a quite high valuation, rests on three main pillars:1. Palantir is active in an absolute growth market that will grow for decadesBig data, data analysis, and artificial intelligence are not short-term trends that will play out in a couple of years, but rather megatrends that will most likely become ever more important. 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and likely even farther in the future, big data and artificial intelligence will still be growth markets.2. Palantir has a very clear industry leadership positionMany hyped-up growth companies are active in a highly fought-over market, oftentimes there is no clear, large moat for first-movers and current market leaders. I believe that in Palantir's case, that is not true. The company has developed a wide range of products and offerings for customers that are very unique, and where competition is not looking like a major concern. On top of that, Palantir has established very strong connections with government agencies and the military, which will be hard to replicate for eventual competitors. This does, I believe, result in a high likelihood that Palantir will not only be the leading player in the near term, but that it will retain this position for a long time. I personally am not so sure about the future leadership position of other current hyped-up leaders, including Tesla (TSLA) in EVs, Beyond Meat (BYND) in plant-based meat alternatives, etc.3. The industry Palantir is active in has great characteristicsBig data and artificial intelligence are not only absolute growth markets, they also, as part of the software/service tech industry, offer a range of highly compelling characteristics. First, the software industry has, on average, very high gross and operating margins. This is, at least partially, the result of relatively low proportional costs, as there is no expensive manufacturing infrastructure needed.High gross margins are one of the common traits shared by companies that are able to deliver strong long-term share price gains.The software industry is also capital extensive, which means that free cash flows, on average, are relatively high. There is no need to build out a lot of expensive infrastructure such as manufacturing plants, which translates into attractive free cash generation that can be used for tuck-in acquisitions, debt reduction, etc.Third, the software industry overall is not cyclical. As software is an essential part of our daily lives and of doing business, customers don't scale back their use of software during a recession or any other type of crisis. In Palantir's case, where government agencies are a major customer, resilience is even stronger. Compared to many other growth industries, including EVs, renewable energy, etc. these very attractive traits are very pronounced for software companies, including Palantir. As an example of the attractiveness of Palantir's business mode, let's look at its gross margins versus those of other hyped growth stocks:Data by YChartsClearly, Palantir is in a class of its own compared to Tesla, Beyond Meat, Peloton (PTON), or Canadian Solar (CSIQ) (as a stand-in for most solar and renewable stocks).Palantir's Valuation - How High Is It?Looking at current earnings per share estimates for this year, which stand at $0.16, Palantir is trading for around 150 times this year's earnings. That is, of course, an extremely high valuation in absolute terms.However, it should be considered that Palantir is just beginning to generate positive net profits. Shortly after breaking even, net profits can't be expected to be very high yet. But due to two key reasons, Palantir's earnings should grow meaningfully in coming years. First, the nature of the market the company is active in will allow for strong revenue growth going forward. On top of that, thanks to the fact that Palantir generates very high gross margins, each additional dollar of revenue that the company generates in the future should help a lot in improving profitability. When a company like Palantir adds $1 billion in additional sales, that will do a lot more for its bottom line compared to most other companies, that won't see profits grow as much due to lower margins.Analysts are thus, not surprisingly, forecasting strong earnings per share growth over the next two years:Data by YChartsWhereas Palantir trades for around 150 times this year's earnings, the stock trades for 118 times 2022's earnings, and for 97 times 2023's earnings. Those aren't low valuations at all, but it can make sense to look at how companies such as Netflix (NFLX) or Amazon (AMZN) were valued in their younger days.Data by YChartsNot too long ago, these companies were trading for 200-300 times net profits, despite having reached a much larger size already. Palantir, with stronger gross margins and a smaller size, is not trading for 200 or even 300 times net earnings. Since we all know that buying Amazon or Netflix five years ago was a great decision, Palantir's current valuation may indeed not be unreasonable.When we assume that current estimates for 2023's net earnings are correct, and that Palantir will be able to grow its earnings per share by 25% a year through the 2020s, then net earnings would total $1.23 in 2030. Put a 35 times earnings multiple on that, and shares would be valued at $43, which would lead to annual returns of ~6%.A 35 times earnings multiple may be on the conservative side still - after all, even a giant such as Amazon is trading at 72 times earnings today. Palantir may also be able to grow its earnings per share at a higher pace than 25% a year during the 2020s. Lastly, Palantir may be way more profitable in 2023 compared to what analysts are forecasting right now (after all, the company has easily beaten estimates in the past), which would lead to higher EPS in 2030 as well, assuming an unchanged growth rate. In a more bullish scenario, where Palantir earns $0.30 in 2023, grows its EPS by 30% a year through 2030 and trades at 40 times net earnings in 2030, the stock could be worth $75 nine years from now, delivering 200% in that scenario. I'm not saying that this will happen - no one can know that right now. But I believe that, with reasonable assumptions, it can be argued that Palantir's shares may not be all that overpriced right now.How To Get Into Palantir At A Lower PriceFor those that like the company, but that deem shares a little too expensive, selling covered calls or cash-secured puts could be an interesting choice. Due to a high implied volatility, option premiums are quite high. If you buy 100 shares at $25 and sell a $30 call with expiry in June 2022 at $6.30, you effectively entered a position at $18.70, or a 25% discount to the current price. There is a risk of shares getting called away, but even in that scenario, one would still generate a return of 45% ($36.30/$25) in 14 months, which would not at all be unattractive.Similarly, entering a position via cash-secured puts (e.g. Jan 2022 puts with a strike price selling for$3.00right now) could be a way to get a sizeable discount versus the current share price.TakeawayAt first sight, Palantir looks quite expensive, trading for around 150 times net earnings. But when we take a closer look, the above-average quality, strong growth outlook, and great market position, Palantir may well be worth its current price. I see it as one of the most favorable among the hyped-up growth stocks - which I see as overvalued in most cases - and believe that investors who buy Palantir's shares right here may very well do fine in the long run. I still believe that utilizing option strategies to enter a position at a lower effective price could be a good idea though, as this is highly rewarding thanks to very high option premiums.Palantir looks quite expensive but unlike many other hyped-up names, it could be worth its current valuation, I believe. I believe that the stock is interesting for very long-term oriented investors that want to see Palantir's potential play out over the next decades.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":390,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":364687313,"gmtCreate":1614848301332,"gmtModify":1704775947575,"author":{"id":"3560304315062593","authorId":"3560304315062593","name":"hy27","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3560304315062593","authorIdStr":"3560304315062593"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Probably will recover in the coming months.","listText":"Probably will recover in the coming months.","text":"Probably will recover in the coming months.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/364687313","repostId":"1191218213","repostType":4,"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":415,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"hots":[{"id":364687313,"gmtCreate":1614848301332,"gmtModify":1704775947575,"author":{"id":"3560304315062593","authorId":"3560304315062593","name":"hy27","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3560304315062593","authorIdStr":"3560304315062593"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Probably will recover in the coming months.","listText":"Probably will recover in the coming months.","text":"Probably will recover in the coming months.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/364687313","repostId":"1191218213","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1191218213","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1614845546,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1191218213?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-03-04 16:12","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Why Tesla Stock Fell Sharply (Again) on Wednesday","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1191218213","media":"Motley Fool","summary":"What happenedShares of Tesla were hit hard on Wednesday. The stock fell 4.8% by the time the market ","content":"<p><b>What happened</b></p><p>Shares of <b>Tesla</b> were hit hard on Wednesday. The stock fell 4.8% by the time the market closed.</p><p>The stock is likely down primarily because of a decline in the overall market that weighed particularly heavily ongrowth stockslike Tesla. However, shares may also be down because of a note from <b>Morgan Stanley</b> analyst Adam Jonas about <b>Ford</b>'s new electric Mustang Mach-E taking market share from Tesla in February.</p><p><b>So what</b></p><p>Jonas estimates that Tesla's market share of the EV market in the U.S. dropped from 81% in February of 2020 to 69% in February of 2021, largely due to market share gains from the new Mustang Mach-E.</p><p>Still, this doesn't mean Tesla's electric vehicle sales are faring poorly; the overall EV market grew 40% year over year during the period, Jonas estimates.</p><p>The main reason for the stock's decline, however, is likely a pullback in the overall market on Wednesday. The<b>S&P 500</b>and<b>Nasdaq Composite</b>fell 1.3% and 2.7%, respectively. Many growth stocks like Tesla fell even more.</p><p><b>Now what</b></p><p>Tesla stock's decline adds to an overall downward trend for the stock in recent weeks. After shares rose to an all-time high of $900.40 earlier this year, the stock is now down 7% year to date, underperforming the S&P 500's 2% decline.</p><p>Investors should expect more volatility from Tesla shares, as growth stocks are typically much more volatile than the overall market.</p>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Why Tesla Stock Fell Sharply (Again) on Wednesday</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nWhy Tesla Stock Fell Sharply (Again) on Wednesday\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-03-04 16:12 GMT+8 <a href=https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/03/03/why-tesla-stock-fell-sharply-on-wednesday/><strong>Motley Fool</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>What happenedShares of Tesla were hit hard on Wednesday. The stock fell 4.8% by the time the market closed.The stock is likely down primarily because of a decline in the overall market that weighed ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/03/03/why-tesla-stock-fell-sharply-on-wednesday/\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"TSLA":"特斯拉"},"source_url":"https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/03/03/why-tesla-stock-fell-sharply-on-wednesday/","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1191218213","content_text":"What happenedShares of Tesla were hit hard on Wednesday. The stock fell 4.8% by the time the market closed.The stock is likely down primarily because of a decline in the overall market that weighed particularly heavily ongrowth stockslike Tesla. However, shares may also be down because of a note from Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas about Ford's new electric Mustang Mach-E taking market share from Tesla in February.So whatJonas estimates that Tesla's market share of the EV market in the U.S. dropped from 81% in February of 2020 to 69% in February of 2021, largely due to market share gains from the new Mustang Mach-E.Still, this doesn't mean Tesla's electric vehicle sales are faring poorly; the overall EV market grew 40% year over year during the period, Jonas estimates.The main reason for the stock's decline, however, is likely a pullback in the overall market on Wednesday. TheS&P 500andNasdaq Compositefell 1.3% and 2.7%, respectively. Many growth stocks like Tesla fell even more.Now whatTesla stock's decline adds to an overall downward trend for the stock in recent weeks. After shares rose to an all-time high of $900.40 earlier this year, the stock is now down 7% year to date, underperforming the S&P 500's 2% decline.Investors should expect more volatility from Tesla shares, as growth stocks are typically much more volatile than the overall market.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":415,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":347529137,"gmtCreate":1618502620429,"gmtModify":1704711977223,"author":{"id":"3560304315062593","authorId":"3560304315062593","name":"hy27","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3560304315062593","authorIdStr":"3560304315062593"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Food for thought","listText":"Food for thought","text":"Food for thought","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/347529137","repostId":"1125635474","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1125635474","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1618295945,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1125635474?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-04-13 14:39","market":"us","language":"en","title":"AppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1125635474","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"SummaryAppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 mil","content":"<p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>AppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 million shares.</li><li>At the high end of the IPO price range, the company is aiming to raise $2.1 billion, and it would be valued at $30.4 billion.</li><li>Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8.</li><li>The company has been a key beneficiary of the surging growth of popular game apps.</li><li>Despite strong sales growth, its operating margins worsened in 2020 due to higher operating expenses.</li></ul><p><b>Investment Thesis</b></p><p>AppLovin<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/APP\">AppLovin Corporation</a> is one of the key beneficiaries of the exploding demand for mobile apps, especially for mobile games. The company's sales growth has been surging in recent years as the company has benefited from both organic growth and has been aggressive in making numerous acquisitions in the past three years.</p><p>Most developers lack access to the marketing, monetization, and data analytics tools required to stand out among the more than 4.8 million mobile apps available on the Apple App Store(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Google Play Store(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL). The company's products and services help many app developers to scale up their business and create a successful app that can be sustained long term. This is where the company's capabilities in app development, marketing, and analytics really stand out.</p><p>There are more than 1.3 million mobile gaming apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.Mobile gamingaccounts for 39% of worldwide app downloads and for 72% of all app store consumer spend by value, according to Sensor Tower.</p><p>Although the company's operating margins declined in the past two years mainly due to higher operating expenses, we believe that the company's profit margins will turn around this year due to a combination of higher economies of scale and lower operating expenses as a percentage of revenues.</p><p><b>Comparable Companies Valuation Analysis</b></p><p>In the comparable companies valuation analysis, we used the following companies as comps to AppLovin:</p><ul><li>Unity Software (U)</li><li>Roblox Corp. (RBLX)</li><li>Activision Blizzard (ATVI)</li><li>Zynga (ZNGA)</li></ul><p>Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and implied target price per share of $99.8. This represents 17% upside from the high end of the IPO price range of $85. We have a POSITIVE view of the AppLovin IPO.</p><p>Our base case valuation of AppLovin is based on a 16x EV/S multiple (using 2021 sales estimate), which represents a 10% higher than the average EV/S multiple of the comps. It is also below the EV/S multiple of Unity Software and Roblox which trade at EV/S multiple of 26.8x and 19.2x, respectively.</p><p>The comps' average sales growth in 2020 and 2021 are similar to the sales growth rates of AppLovin in this period. Among the comps, Roblox has the highest sales growth and Activision has the lowest sales growth in 2020 and 2021. Overall, we have assumed higher sales growth for AppLovin versus its peers in 2021 and 2022 and this is one of main reasons why we have applied a 10% higher valuation multiple than the comps.</p><p>However, Roblox is trading at 19.2x EV/S in 2021 and we have applied a 16x EV/S multiple for AppLovin (17% lower valuation multiple than Roblox). We believe the market will attach a slightly higher valuation multiple for Roblox than AppLovin, mainly due to the former company's higher sales growth and operating margins in 2021, and its brand is more recognized worldwide.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b47032411f633c63c676152889baa874\" tg-width=\"553\" tg-height=\"350\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/3ea8b356b98201f398b48bd4d57e507a\" tg-width=\"552\" tg-height=\"455\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8a2dfe8877740e842bb1e143c157e39c\" tg-width=\"551\" tg-height=\"370\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0aec05aa4790c780a95e2527c62896e9\" tg-width=\"554\" tg-height=\"548\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8ee98f1dd0f1c0becb865f331a283068\" tg-width=\"550\" tg-height=\"340\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/96321e40b2bb290d968a20e0a3832de8\" tg-width=\"554\" tg-height=\"362\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/327d495d893132d12a74cc91d93df055\" tg-width=\"553\" tg-height=\"367\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><b>Income Statement Forecast</b></p><p>AppLovin generated sales of $1,451.1 million and an operating loss of $62.1 million in 2020. The company's sales have nearly tripled from 2018 to 2020. The company's operating margins declined from 50.1% in 2018 to 19.5% in 2019 and -4.3% in 2020. The major reasons for the lower operating margins are due to higher cost of sales, sales & marketing, R&D, and other operating expenses as a percentage of sales.</p><p>We estimate AppLovin to generate sales of $2.2 billion (up 51% YoY) and an operating profit of $65.2 million in 2021. From 2020 to 2025, we have assumed the company's sales to grow at a CAGR of 28.6%. We have also assumed the company's operating margin to turn positive to 3% in 2021 from -4.3% in 2020. We estimate its operating margins to improve further to 6.8% in 2022, 10.6% in 2023, and 17.8% in 2025. We estimate AppLovin to have sales of $5.1 billion and an operating profit of $0.9 billion in 2025.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4e58f808f42f4c3a1e238b587f637063\" tg-width=\"547\" tg-height=\"669\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1026d63d84ac8f26d8391d7e91317b9e\" tg-width=\"547\" tg-height=\"449\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b9bf6e155cbc281373a8fac78fd3e08b\" tg-width=\"547\" tg-height=\"488\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><b>Company Background</b></p><p>Thecompanyoriginally started its business helping customers to improve the smartphone customer experiences for all the users. In recent years, the company has become a much bigger player in the mobile gaming segment and it also helps developers to grow their users and improve the monetization of their apps.</p><p>According to IDC, the company's totalmarket opportunityis estimated to be $189 billion in 2020, growing to $283 billion in 2024, representing a CAGR of 10.6% in this period. This total market size of $184 billion was derived by adding the worldwide total in-app advertising revenue of $101 billion (including gaming and non-gaming in-app display, video, and other advertising, but excluding in-app search advertising) and worldwide direct game spending of $88 billion for 2020.</p><p>AppLovin has invested about $1 billion in 15 acquisitions and partnerships since 2018. It owns more than 200 free-to-play mobile games from 12 studios.AppLovinlaunched a gaming business unit called Lion Studios in July 2018. It also acquired a company called Max in September 2018. Max provides in-app bidding service, which is a type of advertising where mobile publishers can sell their ad inventory in an auction method). AppLovin also owns and operates gaming studios Machine Zone, Belka Games, PeopleFun and Firecraft Studios.</p><p>In February 2021, AppLovin signed an agreement to purchase Adjust for $1 billion (including $598 million in cash and $352 million in convertible securities, and an assumption of up to $40 million in debt). Adjust is a leading mobile app analytics& marketing products company in Germany. Adjust provides tools to prevent mobile advertising fraud and better measure the user base. This acquisition is expected to close in 1H 2021.</p><p>In the IPO prospectus, the company mentioned that it plans to use $75 million of its Class A common shares for charitable purposes. If the company raises $1 billion in the IPO, this would represent nearly 7.5% of total amount. This is a bit unusual to have this large number of shares allocated for charitable purposes. We applaud this move by the CEO and its senior management. Adam Foroughi, the co-founder and CEO of AppLovin, previously co-founded two advertising technology companies, Lifestreet Media Inc. and Social Hour Inc.</p><p><b>AppLovin (Key Metrics)</b></p><p>The table provides the company's key metrics. There has been a strong increase in the monthly active payers which jumped from 0.3 million in 2018 to 1.0 million in 2019 and 1.5 million in 2020. However, the enterprise clients declined from 192 in 2018 to 172 in 2020. The company defines its enterprise clients as third-party business clients from which it has collected more than $125,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months. Average revenue per monthly active payer increased from $11 in 2018 to $32 in 2019 and $41 in 2020.</p><p>The company's main businesses comprise of its platform and apps. Its platform business mainly includes AppLovin Core Technologies and AppLovin Software. Its apps consist of over 200 free-to-play mobile games in five genres, run by 12 studios including those owned by the company and also those it partners with. The five major game genres offering by the company include casual, hypercasual, match-three, midcore, and card/casino. No single game of the company contributed more than 16% of its total revenue in 2020.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0638b1ba5528bc65ee975156f3bcfd46\" tg-width=\"605\" tg-height=\"225\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Source: Company data</span></p><p>The company collects revenue from two sources including business clients and consumers. In 2020, business clients accounted for 49% of total revenue and consumers represented 51% of total revenue.</p><p><b>Business Clients:</b></p><ul><li>The company has a wide range of business clients including Facebook(NASDAQ:FB), Google, and a number of much smaller companies. It had 1,400 business clients at the end of 2020. Nearly 99% of the company's business revenue came from its 172 enterprise clients as of December 31, 2020. The company also had a solid customer retention rate of 118% in 2020 for its enterprise clients.</li><li>AppLovin Software is a comprehensive suite of tools for developers to get their mobile apps discovered and downloaded by the right users, optimize return on marketing spend, and maximize monetization of engagement. AppLovin Software reaches an audience of over 410 million users per day. The company's software solutions provide tools for mobile app developers to expand their businesses by optimizing and automating the marketing and monetization of their apps. Since inception, the company's platform has driven more than 6 billion mobile app installs.</li><li>The company's main software includes AppDiscovery and MAX. Business clients use AppDiscovery to automate, optimize, and manage their app user acquisition investments. They set marketing and user growth goals, and AppDiscovery optimizes their ad spend in an effort to achieve their return on advertising spend targets and other marketing objectives. AppDiscovery comprises the vast majority of revenue from its software.</li><li>Revenue is generated from the advertisers, typically on a performance-based, cost-per-install basis, and shared with the company's advertising publishers, typically on a cost per impression model. Business clients use MAX to optimize purchases of app ad inventory.</li><li>The Compass Analytics tool within MAX provides insights to manage against key performance indicators, understand the long-term value of users, and help manage profitability. Revenue from MAX is generated based on a percentage of client spend. Business clients that purchase advertising inventory from the company's Apps are able to target highly relevant users from its diverse and global portfolio of over 200 mobile games.</li></ul><p><b>Consumers:</b></p><ul><li>The company has also developed and invested in AppLovin Apps, which consist of a globally diversified portfolio of over 200 free-to-play mobile games. These Apps are accessed by nearly 32 million users every day. Consumer revenue is generated when the user of its apps makes an in-app purchase (IAP).</li><li>The company's apps are mostly free-to-play mobile games and generate consumer revenue through in-app purchase of virtual items which are used to enhance gameplay and improve the probabilities of the mobile game progression opportunities.</li><li>During the three months ended December 31, 2020, the company had an average of 2.1 million monthly active payers (MAPs) across its portfolio of apps. Over that period, the company had an average revenue per monthly active payer of $41.</li></ul><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/17a469e7db2359f56bb1fec2388f2826\" tg-width=\"555\" tg-height=\"454\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><b>Major Competitors</b></p><p>In the mobile games and other mobile game app related businesses, the major competitors include Unity Software, Activision Blizzard, Tencent Holdings(OTCPK:TCEHY), and Zynga. In the advertising platform business, the company's major competitors include Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon (AMZN). Many of these companies are also AppLovin's partners and customers. In addition to these mega companies, the company faces competition from thousands of smaller competitors worldwide.</p><p>Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Analysis</p><p>The company has a leveraged balance sheet. Net debt increased from $0.8 billion at the end of 2019 to $1.3 billion at the end of 2020. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio also rose from 260% at the end of 2019 to 315% at the end of 2020. After KKR invested in the company in 2018, it appears that AppLovin was advised to add more leverage and expand the business more aggressively through numerous acquisitions. Through this IPO, the company's balance sheet will become much stronger.</p><p>The company generated positive cash flow from operations and free cash flow in the past two years. Its cash flow from operations and free cash flow averaged $211 million and $207 million, respectively, in 2019 and 2020.</p><p><b>Conclusion</b></p><p>AppLovin is one of the key beneficiaries of the surging growth of game-related mobile apps. Our base case valuation of AppLovin is EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8, which is about 17% higher than the high end of the IPO price range. In recent months, some of the major game-related IPOs including Roblox and Unity Software have done really well, although their share prices have come down from their recent highs. AppLovin will likely be compared against these stocks.</p><p>Despite AppLovin's decline in operating margins in 2020 due to higher operating expenses, it is more likely that investors will focus on the company's ability to continue to scale up the business and generate higher sales growth. There remains some uncertainty in terms of how quickly the company is willing to focus on the probability at the expense of lower sales growth. In addition, there are some concerns about the recent weakening sentiment on the tech-related IPOs.</p>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>AppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAppLovin: Capitalizing On The Surging Growth Of Mobile Game Apps\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-04-13 14:39 GMT+8 <a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4418129-applovin-capitalizing-growth-mobile-game-apps><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryAppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 million shares.At the high end of the IPO price range, the company is aiming to raise $2.1 billion, and...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4418129-applovin-capitalizing-growth-mobile-game-apps\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"APP":"AppLovin Corporation"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4418129-applovin-capitalizing-growth-mobile-game-apps","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1125635474","content_text":"SummaryAppLovin announced its IPO price range of $75 to $85 per share. The company is selling 25 million shares.At the high end of the IPO price range, the company is aiming to raise $2.1 billion, and it would be valued at $30.4 billion.Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8.The company has been a key beneficiary of the surging growth of popular game apps.Despite strong sales growth, its operating margins worsened in 2020 due to higher operating expenses.Investment ThesisAppLovinAppLovin Corporation is one of the key beneficiaries of the exploding demand for mobile apps, especially for mobile games. The company's sales growth has been surging in recent years as the company has benefited from both organic growth and has been aggressive in making numerous acquisitions in the past three years.Most developers lack access to the marketing, monetization, and data analytics tools required to stand out among the more than 4.8 million mobile apps available on the Apple App Store(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Google Play Store(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL). The company's products and services help many app developers to scale up their business and create a successful app that can be sustained long term. This is where the company's capabilities in app development, marketing, and analytics really stand out.There are more than 1.3 million mobile gaming apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.Mobile gamingaccounts for 39% of worldwide app downloads and for 72% of all app store consumer spend by value, according to Sensor Tower.Although the company's operating margins declined in the past two years mainly due to higher operating expenses, we believe that the company's profit margins will turn around this year due to a combination of higher economies of scale and lower operating expenses as a percentage of revenues.Comparable Companies Valuation AnalysisIn the comparable companies valuation analysis, we used the following companies as comps to AppLovin:Unity Software (U)Roblox Corp. (RBLX)Activision Blizzard (ATVI)Zynga (ZNGA)Our base case valuation of AppLovin is an EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and implied target price per share of $99.8. This represents 17% upside from the high end of the IPO price range of $85. We have a POSITIVE view of the AppLovin IPO.Our base case valuation of AppLovin is based on a 16x EV/S multiple (using 2021 sales estimate), which represents a 10% higher than the average EV/S multiple of the comps. It is also below the EV/S multiple of Unity Software and Roblox which trade at EV/S multiple of 26.8x and 19.2x, respectively.The comps' average sales growth in 2020 and 2021 are similar to the sales growth rates of AppLovin in this period. Among the comps, Roblox has the highest sales growth and Activision has the lowest sales growth in 2020 and 2021. Overall, we have assumed higher sales growth for AppLovin versus its peers in 2021 and 2022 and this is one of main reasons why we have applied a 10% higher valuation multiple than the comps.However, Roblox is trading at 19.2x EV/S in 2021 and we have applied a 16x EV/S multiple for AppLovin (17% lower valuation multiple than Roblox). We believe the market will attach a slightly higher valuation multiple for Roblox than AppLovin, mainly due to the former company's higher sales growth and operating margins in 2021, and its brand is more recognized worldwide.Income Statement ForecastAppLovin generated sales of $1,451.1 million and an operating loss of $62.1 million in 2020. The company's sales have nearly tripled from 2018 to 2020. The company's operating margins declined from 50.1% in 2018 to 19.5% in 2019 and -4.3% in 2020. The major reasons for the lower operating margins are due to higher cost of sales, sales & marketing, R&D, and other operating expenses as a percentage of sales.We estimate AppLovin to generate sales of $2.2 billion (up 51% YoY) and an operating profit of $65.2 million in 2021. From 2020 to 2025, we have assumed the company's sales to grow at a CAGR of 28.6%. We have also assumed the company's operating margin to turn positive to 3% in 2021 from -4.3% in 2020. We estimate its operating margins to improve further to 6.8% in 2022, 10.6% in 2023, and 17.8% in 2025. We estimate AppLovin to have sales of $5.1 billion and an operating profit of $0.9 billion in 2025.Company BackgroundThecompanyoriginally started its business helping customers to improve the smartphone customer experiences for all the users. In recent years, the company has become a much bigger player in the mobile gaming segment and it also helps developers to grow their users and improve the monetization of their apps.According to IDC, the company's totalmarket opportunityis estimated to be $189 billion in 2020, growing to $283 billion in 2024, representing a CAGR of 10.6% in this period. This total market size of $184 billion was derived by adding the worldwide total in-app advertising revenue of $101 billion (including gaming and non-gaming in-app display, video, and other advertising, but excluding in-app search advertising) and worldwide direct game spending of $88 billion for 2020.AppLovin has invested about $1 billion in 15 acquisitions and partnerships since 2018. It owns more than 200 free-to-play mobile games from 12 studios.AppLovinlaunched a gaming business unit called Lion Studios in July 2018. It also acquired a company called Max in September 2018. Max provides in-app bidding service, which is a type of advertising where mobile publishers can sell their ad inventory in an auction method). AppLovin also owns and operates gaming studios Machine Zone, Belka Games, PeopleFun and Firecraft Studios.In February 2021, AppLovin signed an agreement to purchase Adjust for $1 billion (including $598 million in cash and $352 million in convertible securities, and an assumption of up to $40 million in debt). Adjust is a leading mobile app analytics& marketing products company in Germany. Adjust provides tools to prevent mobile advertising fraud and better measure the user base. This acquisition is expected to close in 1H 2021.In the IPO prospectus, the company mentioned that it plans to use $75 million of its Class A common shares for charitable purposes. If the company raises $1 billion in the IPO, this would represent nearly 7.5% of total amount. This is a bit unusual to have this large number of shares allocated for charitable purposes. We applaud this move by the CEO and its senior management. Adam Foroughi, the co-founder and CEO of AppLovin, previously co-founded two advertising technology companies, Lifestreet Media Inc. and Social Hour Inc.AppLovin (Key Metrics)The table provides the company's key metrics. There has been a strong increase in the monthly active payers which jumped from 0.3 million in 2018 to 1.0 million in 2019 and 1.5 million in 2020. However, the enterprise clients declined from 192 in 2018 to 172 in 2020. The company defines its enterprise clients as third-party business clients from which it has collected more than $125,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months. Average revenue per monthly active payer increased from $11 in 2018 to $32 in 2019 and $41 in 2020.The company's main businesses comprise of its platform and apps. Its platform business mainly includes AppLovin Core Technologies and AppLovin Software. Its apps consist of over 200 free-to-play mobile games in five genres, run by 12 studios including those owned by the company and also those it partners with. The five major game genres offering by the company include casual, hypercasual, match-three, midcore, and card/casino. No single game of the company contributed more than 16% of its total revenue in 2020.Source: Company dataThe company collects revenue from two sources including business clients and consumers. In 2020, business clients accounted for 49% of total revenue and consumers represented 51% of total revenue.Business Clients:The company has a wide range of business clients including Facebook(NASDAQ:FB), Google, and a number of much smaller companies. It had 1,400 business clients at the end of 2020. Nearly 99% of the company's business revenue came from its 172 enterprise clients as of December 31, 2020. The company also had a solid customer retention rate of 118% in 2020 for its enterprise clients.AppLovin Software is a comprehensive suite of tools for developers to get their mobile apps discovered and downloaded by the right users, optimize return on marketing spend, and maximize monetization of engagement. AppLovin Software reaches an audience of over 410 million users per day. The company's software solutions provide tools for mobile app developers to expand their businesses by optimizing and automating the marketing and monetization of their apps. Since inception, the company's platform has driven more than 6 billion mobile app installs.The company's main software includes AppDiscovery and MAX. Business clients use AppDiscovery to automate, optimize, and manage their app user acquisition investments. They set marketing and user growth goals, and AppDiscovery optimizes their ad spend in an effort to achieve their return on advertising spend targets and other marketing objectives. AppDiscovery comprises the vast majority of revenue from its software.Revenue is generated from the advertisers, typically on a performance-based, cost-per-install basis, and shared with the company's advertising publishers, typically on a cost per impression model. Business clients use MAX to optimize purchases of app ad inventory.The Compass Analytics tool within MAX provides insights to manage against key performance indicators, understand the long-term value of users, and help manage profitability. Revenue from MAX is generated based on a percentage of client spend. Business clients that purchase advertising inventory from the company's Apps are able to target highly relevant users from its diverse and global portfolio of over 200 mobile games.Consumers:The company has also developed and invested in AppLovin Apps, which consist of a globally diversified portfolio of over 200 free-to-play mobile games. These Apps are accessed by nearly 32 million users every day. Consumer revenue is generated when the user of its apps makes an in-app purchase (IAP).The company's apps are mostly free-to-play mobile games and generate consumer revenue through in-app purchase of virtual items which are used to enhance gameplay and improve the probabilities of the mobile game progression opportunities.During the three months ended December 31, 2020, the company had an average of 2.1 million monthly active payers (MAPs) across its portfolio of apps. Over that period, the company had an average revenue per monthly active payer of $41.Major CompetitorsIn the mobile games and other mobile game app related businesses, the major competitors include Unity Software, Activision Blizzard, Tencent Holdings(OTCPK:TCEHY), and Zynga. In the advertising platform business, the company's major competitors include Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon (AMZN). Many of these companies are also AppLovin's partners and customers. In addition to these mega companies, the company faces competition from thousands of smaller competitors worldwide.Balance Sheet and Cash Flow AnalysisThe company has a leveraged balance sheet. Net debt increased from $0.8 billion at the end of 2019 to $1.3 billion at the end of 2020. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio also rose from 260% at the end of 2019 to 315% at the end of 2020. After KKR invested in the company in 2018, it appears that AppLovin was advised to add more leverage and expand the business more aggressively through numerous acquisitions. Through this IPO, the company's balance sheet will become much stronger.The company generated positive cash flow from operations and free cash flow in the past two years. Its cash flow from operations and free cash flow averaged $211 million and $207 million, respectively, in 2019 and 2020.ConclusionAppLovin is one of the key beneficiaries of the surging growth of game-related mobile apps. Our base case valuation of AppLovin is EV of $35.1 billion, implied market cap of $35.7 billion, and target price per share of $99.8, which is about 17% higher than the high end of the IPO price range. In recent months, some of the major game-related IPOs including Roblox and Unity Software have done really well, although their share prices have come down from their recent highs. AppLovin will likely be compared against these stocks.Despite AppLovin's decline in operating margins in 2020 due to higher operating expenses, it is more likely that investors will focus on the company's ability to continue to scale up the business and generate higher sales growth. There remains some uncertainty in terms of how quickly the company is willing to focus on the probability at the expense of lower sales growth. In addition, there are some concerns about the recent weakening sentiment on the tech-related IPOs.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":644,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":347520554,"gmtCreate":1618502585578,"gmtModify":1704711976089,"author":{"id":"3560304315062593","authorId":"3560304315062593","name":"hy27","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3560304315062593","authorIdStr":"3560304315062593"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Food for thought .","listText":"Food for thought .","text":"Food for thought .","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/347520554","repostId":"1181372898","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1181372898","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1618501265,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1181372898?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-04-15 23:41","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Is Palantir Actually Overvalued?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1181372898","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.SummaryPalantir looks very expensive","content":"<p>(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/48094c753cf8466f8f6f524a7349fba1\" tg-width=\"658\" tg-height=\"395\"></p><p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>Palantir looks very expensive at first sight. But could that be justified?</li><li>The company looks a lot stronger than many other hyped-up growth stocks when it comes to margins, market positioning, etc.</li><li>We showcase ways to enter a position in Palantir at a more attractive price.</li></ul><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/534db15a589a6170b395a97ae7d469e8\" tg-width=\"768\" tg-height=\"418\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Photo by wildpixel/iStock via Getty Images</span></p><p><b>Article Thesis</b></p><p>Palantir (PLTR), at 150 times this year's expected earnings, looks very expensive. But when we take a closer look, the price might be justified, as Palantir has a compelling ultra-long-term growth outlook due to a strong position in an absolute growth market. Despite a seemingly very high valuation, Palantir's shares could be a solid long-term investment.</p><p><b>Palantir Is Not A Typical Stock I Like</b></p><p>In general, I am mostly focused on dividend-paying stocks that trade at reasonable or cheap valuations, with some \"growth at a reasonable price\" (GARP) added in. Stocks trading at 100 times forward earnings, or even higher than that, are not at all typical of what I like to write about, and what I personally invest in. I have been quite critical of many stocks that trade at what I believe are too-high valuations. Nevertheless, I see Palantir as a stock that has a lot of potential in the long run, and that seems worthy of consideration, despite a seemingly very high valuation.</p><p>The reasoning for why I like Palantir, despite it trading at a quite high valuation, rests on three main pillars:</p><p><b>1. Palantir is active in an absolute growth market that will grow for decades</b></p><p>Big data, data analysis, and artificial intelligence are not short-term trends that will play out in a couple of years, but rather megatrends that will most likely become ever more important. 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and likely even farther in the future, big data and artificial intelligence will still be growth markets.</p><p><b>2. Palantir has a very clear industry leadership position</b></p><p>Many hyped-up growth companies are active in a highly fought-over market, oftentimes there is no clear, large moat for first-movers and current market leaders. I believe that in Palantir's case, that is not true. The company has developed a wide range of products and offerings for customers that are very unique, and where competition is not looking like a major concern. On top of that, Palantir has established very strong connections with government agencies and the military, which will be hard to replicate for eventual competitors. This does, I believe, result in a high likelihood that Palantir will not only be the leading player in the near term, but that it will retain this position for a long time. I personally am not so sure about the future leadership position of other current hyped-up leaders, including Tesla (TSLA) in EVs, Beyond Meat (BYND) in plant-based meat alternatives, etc.</p><p><b>3. The industry Palantir is active in has great characteristics</b></p><p>Big data and artificial intelligence are not only absolute growth markets, they also, as part of the software/service tech industry, offer a range of highly compelling characteristics. First, the software industry has, on average, very high gross and operating margins. This is, at least partially, the result of relatively low proportional costs, as there is no expensive manufacturing infrastructure needed.High gross margins are one of the common traits shared by companies that are able to deliver strong long-term share price gains.</p><p>The software industry is also capital extensive, which means that free cash flows, on average, are relatively high. There is no need to build out a lot of expensive infrastructure such as manufacturing plants, which translates into attractive free cash generation that can be used for tuck-in acquisitions, debt reduction, etc.</p><p>Third, the software industry overall is not cyclical. As software is an essential part of our daily lives and of doing business, customers don't scale back their use of software during a recession or any other type of crisis. In Palantir's case, where government agencies are a major customer, resilience is even stronger. Compared to many other growth industries, including EVs, renewable energy, etc. these very attractive traits are very pronounced for software companies, including Palantir. As an example of the attractiveness of Palantir's business mode, let's look at its gross margins versus those of other hyped growth stocks:</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/bd5c147cb9babf998cfd35649f4cad22\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"470\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Clearly, Palantir is in a class of its own compared to Tesla, Beyond Meat, Peloton (PTON), or Canadian Solar (CSIQ) (as a stand-in for most solar and renewable stocks).</p><p><b>Palantir's Valuation - How High Is It?</b></p><p>Looking at current earnings per share estimates for this year, which stand at $0.16, Palantir is trading for around 150 times this year's earnings. That is, of course, an extremely high valuation in absolute terms.</p><p>However, it should be considered that Palantir is just beginning to generate positive net profits. Shortly after breaking even, net profits can't be expected to be very high yet. But due to two key reasons, Palantir's earnings should grow meaningfully in coming years. First, the nature of the market the company is active in will allow for strong revenue growth going forward. On top of that, thanks to the fact that Palantir generates very high gross margins, each additional dollar of revenue that the company generates in the future should help a lot in improving profitability. When a company like Palantir adds $1 billion in additional sales, that will do a lot more for its bottom line compared to most other companies, that won't see profits grow as much due to lower margins.</p><p>Analysts are thus, not surprisingly, forecasting strong earnings per share growth over the next two years:</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f4a7db46186418a049678d1ecf17ff30\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"436\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Whereas Palantir trades for around 150 times this year's earnings, the stock trades for 118 times 2022's earnings, and for 97 times 2023's earnings. Those aren't low valuations at all, but it can make sense to look at how companies such as Netflix (NFLX) or Amazon (AMZN) were valued in their younger days.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8c82732cfdc04638279f1d9e77e9c1e4\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"419\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Not too long ago, these companies were trading for 200-300 times net profits, despite having reached a much larger size already. Palantir, with stronger gross margins and a smaller size, is not trading for 200 or even 300 times net earnings. Since we all know that buying Amazon or Netflix five years ago was a great decision, Palantir's current valuation may indeed not be unreasonable.</p><p>When we assume that current estimates for 2023's net earnings are correct, and that Palantir will be able to grow its earnings per share by 25% a year through the 2020s, then net earnings would total $1.23 in 2030. Put a 35 times earnings multiple on that, and shares would be valued at $43, which would lead to annual returns of ~6%.</p><p>A 35 times earnings multiple may be on the conservative side still - after all, even a giant such as Amazon is trading at 72 times earnings today. Palantir may also be able to grow its earnings per share at a higher pace than 25% a year during the 2020s. Lastly, Palantir may be way more profitable in 2023 compared to what analysts are forecasting right now (after all, the company has easily beaten estimates in the past), which would lead to higher EPS in 2030 as well, assuming an unchanged growth rate. In a more bullish scenario, where Palantir earns $0.30 in 2023, grows its EPS by 30% a year through 2030 and trades at 40 times net earnings in 2030, the stock could be worth $75 nine years from now, delivering 200% in that scenario. I'm not saying that this will happen - no one can know that right now. But I believe that, with reasonable assumptions, it can be argued that Palantir's shares may not be all that overpriced right now.</p><p><b>How To Get Into Palantir At A Lower Price</b></p><p>For those that like the company, but that deem shares a little too expensive, selling covered calls or cash-secured puts could be an interesting choice. Due to a high implied volatility, option premiums are quite high. If you buy 100 shares at $25 and sell a $30 call with expiry in June 2022 at $6.30, you effectively entered a position at $18.70, or a 25% discount to the current price. There is a risk of shares getting called away, but even in that scenario, one would still generate a return of 45% ($36.30/$25) in 14 months, which would not at all be unattractive.</p><p>Similarly, entering a position via cash-secured puts (e.g. Jan 2022 puts with a strike price selling for$3.00right now) could be a way to get a sizeable discount versus the current share price.</p><p><b>Takeaway</b></p><p>At first sight, Palantir looks quite expensive, trading for around 150 times net earnings. But when we take a closer look, the above-average quality, strong growth outlook, and great market position, Palantir may well be worth its current price. I see it as one of the most favorable among the hyped-up growth stocks - which I see as overvalued in most cases - and believe that investors who buy Palantir's shares right here may very well do fine in the long run. I still believe that utilizing option strategies to enter a position at a lower effective price could be a good idea though, as this is highly rewarding thanks to very high option premiums.</p><p>Palantir looks quite expensive but unlike many other hyped-up names, it could be worth its current valuation, I believe. I believe that the stock is interesting for very long-term oriented investors that want to see Palantir's potential play out over the next decades.</p>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Is Palantir Actually Overvalued?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nIs Palantir Actually Overvalued?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-04-15 23:41 GMT+8 <a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419080-is-palantir-actually-overvalued><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.SummaryPalantir looks very expensive at first sight. But could that be justified?The company looks a lot stronger than many other hyped-...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419080-is-palantir-actually-overvalued\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"PLTR":"Palantir Technologies Inc."},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419080-is-palantir-actually-overvalued","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1181372898","content_text":"(April 15) Palantir fell nearlr 3% in Thursday morning trading.SummaryPalantir looks very expensive at first sight. But could that be justified?The company looks a lot stronger than many other hyped-up growth stocks when it comes to margins, market positioning, etc.We showcase ways to enter a position in Palantir at a more attractive price.Photo by wildpixel/iStock via Getty ImagesArticle ThesisPalantir (PLTR), at 150 times this year's expected earnings, looks very expensive. But when we take a closer look, the price might be justified, as Palantir has a compelling ultra-long-term growth outlook due to a strong position in an absolute growth market. Despite a seemingly very high valuation, Palantir's shares could be a solid long-term investment.Palantir Is Not A Typical Stock I LikeIn general, I am mostly focused on dividend-paying stocks that trade at reasonable or cheap valuations, with some \"growth at a reasonable price\" (GARP) added in. Stocks trading at 100 times forward earnings, or even higher than that, are not at all typical of what I like to write about, and what I personally invest in. I have been quite critical of many stocks that trade at what I believe are too-high valuations. Nevertheless, I see Palantir as a stock that has a lot of potential in the long run, and that seems worthy of consideration, despite a seemingly very high valuation.The reasoning for why I like Palantir, despite it trading at a quite high valuation, rests on three main pillars:1. Palantir is active in an absolute growth market that will grow for decadesBig data, data analysis, and artificial intelligence are not short-term trends that will play out in a couple of years, but rather megatrends that will most likely become ever more important. 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and likely even farther in the future, big data and artificial intelligence will still be growth markets.2. Palantir has a very clear industry leadership positionMany hyped-up growth companies are active in a highly fought-over market, oftentimes there is no clear, large moat for first-movers and current market leaders. I believe that in Palantir's case, that is not true. The company has developed a wide range of products and offerings for customers that are very unique, and where competition is not looking like a major concern. On top of that, Palantir has established very strong connections with government agencies and the military, which will be hard to replicate for eventual competitors. This does, I believe, result in a high likelihood that Palantir will not only be the leading player in the near term, but that it will retain this position for a long time. I personally am not so sure about the future leadership position of other current hyped-up leaders, including Tesla (TSLA) in EVs, Beyond Meat (BYND) in plant-based meat alternatives, etc.3. The industry Palantir is active in has great characteristicsBig data and artificial intelligence are not only absolute growth markets, they also, as part of the software/service tech industry, offer a range of highly compelling characteristics. First, the software industry has, on average, very high gross and operating margins. This is, at least partially, the result of relatively low proportional costs, as there is no expensive manufacturing infrastructure needed.High gross margins are one of the common traits shared by companies that are able to deliver strong long-term share price gains.The software industry is also capital extensive, which means that free cash flows, on average, are relatively high. There is no need to build out a lot of expensive infrastructure such as manufacturing plants, which translates into attractive free cash generation that can be used for tuck-in acquisitions, debt reduction, etc.Third, the software industry overall is not cyclical. As software is an essential part of our daily lives and of doing business, customers don't scale back their use of software during a recession or any other type of crisis. In Palantir's case, where government agencies are a major customer, resilience is even stronger. Compared to many other growth industries, including EVs, renewable energy, etc. these very attractive traits are very pronounced for software companies, including Palantir. As an example of the attractiveness of Palantir's business mode, let's look at its gross margins versus those of other hyped growth stocks:Data by YChartsClearly, Palantir is in a class of its own compared to Tesla, Beyond Meat, Peloton (PTON), or Canadian Solar (CSIQ) (as a stand-in for most solar and renewable stocks).Palantir's Valuation - How High Is It?Looking at current earnings per share estimates for this year, which stand at $0.16, Palantir is trading for around 150 times this year's earnings. That is, of course, an extremely high valuation in absolute terms.However, it should be considered that Palantir is just beginning to generate positive net profits. Shortly after breaking even, net profits can't be expected to be very high yet. But due to two key reasons, Palantir's earnings should grow meaningfully in coming years. First, the nature of the market the company is active in will allow for strong revenue growth going forward. On top of that, thanks to the fact that Palantir generates very high gross margins, each additional dollar of revenue that the company generates in the future should help a lot in improving profitability. When a company like Palantir adds $1 billion in additional sales, that will do a lot more for its bottom line compared to most other companies, that won't see profits grow as much due to lower margins.Analysts are thus, not surprisingly, forecasting strong earnings per share growth over the next two years:Data by YChartsWhereas Palantir trades for around 150 times this year's earnings, the stock trades for 118 times 2022's earnings, and for 97 times 2023's earnings. Those aren't low valuations at all, but it can make sense to look at how companies such as Netflix (NFLX) or Amazon (AMZN) were valued in their younger days.Data by YChartsNot too long ago, these companies were trading for 200-300 times net profits, despite having reached a much larger size already. Palantir, with stronger gross margins and a smaller size, is not trading for 200 or even 300 times net earnings. Since we all know that buying Amazon or Netflix five years ago was a great decision, Palantir's current valuation may indeed not be unreasonable.When we assume that current estimates for 2023's net earnings are correct, and that Palantir will be able to grow its earnings per share by 25% a year through the 2020s, then net earnings would total $1.23 in 2030. Put a 35 times earnings multiple on that, and shares would be valued at $43, which would lead to annual returns of ~6%.A 35 times earnings multiple may be on the conservative side still - after all, even a giant such as Amazon is trading at 72 times earnings today. Palantir may also be able to grow its earnings per share at a higher pace than 25% a year during the 2020s. Lastly, Palantir may be way more profitable in 2023 compared to what analysts are forecasting right now (after all, the company has easily beaten estimates in the past), which would lead to higher EPS in 2030 as well, assuming an unchanged growth rate. In a more bullish scenario, where Palantir earns $0.30 in 2023, grows its EPS by 30% a year through 2030 and trades at 40 times net earnings in 2030, the stock could be worth $75 nine years from now, delivering 200% in that scenario. I'm not saying that this will happen - no one can know that right now. But I believe that, with reasonable assumptions, it can be argued that Palantir's shares may not be all that overpriced right now.How To Get Into Palantir At A Lower PriceFor those that like the company, but that deem shares a little too expensive, selling covered calls or cash-secured puts could be an interesting choice. Due to a high implied volatility, option premiums are quite high. If you buy 100 shares at $25 and sell a $30 call with expiry in June 2022 at $6.30, you effectively entered a position at $18.70, or a 25% discount to the current price. There is a risk of shares getting called away, but even in that scenario, one would still generate a return of 45% ($36.30/$25) in 14 months, which would not at all be unattractive.Similarly, entering a position via cash-secured puts (e.g. Jan 2022 puts with a strike price selling for$3.00right now) could be a way to get a sizeable discount versus the current share price.TakeawayAt first sight, Palantir looks quite expensive, trading for around 150 times net earnings. But when we take a closer look, the above-average quality, strong growth outlook, and great market position, Palantir may well be worth its current price. I see it as one of the most favorable among the hyped-up growth stocks - which I see as overvalued in most cases - and believe that investors who buy Palantir's shares right here may very well do fine in the long run. I still believe that utilizing option strategies to enter a position at a lower effective price could be a good idea though, as this is highly rewarding thanks to very high option premiums.Palantir looks quite expensive but unlike many other hyped-up names, it could be worth its current valuation, I believe. I believe that the stock is interesting for very long-term oriented investors that want to see Palantir's potential play out over the next decades.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":390,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"lives":[]}
