Podcast #67 – Disney deep dive
This week on the Pod, we take a deeper look at Disney, a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, known the world over.
The coronavirus pandemic has proven to be a difficult time for the company, with most theme parks and cruise lines shut down or running at reduced capacity, and theatrical releases hobbled by national lockdowns. The silver lining has been the success of their Disney+ streaming service, driven by the increased demand for home entertainment, however recent subscriber growth numbers have been muted.
With no indication of when Covid restrictions will fully lift, the big question is can Disney navigate the storm and continue to grow?
Podcast #66 – Healthtech with Richard Chu
We all want to live longer and healthier lives, so it’s no surprise that healthcare technology is a major area of research and innovation. Medtech and biotech are key investment themes in the Telescope Investing model portfolio, and in our own personal portfolios.
This week we had the pleasure of connecting with healthtech expert investor Richard Chu. Richard shares his thoughts on the healthtech sector, his key investments in this area including GoodRx, Doximity, and OptimizeRx, and also how he saw the writing on the wall for Teladoc Health and exited early, avoiding the share price slump that has hurt our own returns this year!
Podcast #65 – Listener questions
In the pod this week, we field some of the fantastic questions we’ve received recently from our listeners. We give our take on panic selling, investing during high inflation, using leverage, choosing between investment options and having diversification within your investment portfolio. And one of us takes the next step in their investing journey!
Podcast #64 – Marqeta deep dive
In this week’s Pod, we deep dive Marqeta. Their mission is to be the global standard for modern card issuing. They enable other companies to develop, launch and operate card products, by providing the underlying technology that powers many of the new innovations in the payment space, including digital payments, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), digital wallets, and just-in-time (JIT) funding (automatically funding an account in real-time during the transaction process). Their platform gives their customers full control to build a card that’s right for them and their end-users, allowing them to offer card products in a fraction of the time compared to legacy solutions.
Podcast #63 – Digital Turbine deep dive
On this week’s pod, we deep dive Digital Turbine, a mobile ad-tech innovator specialising in targeted app installation and programmatic advertising to mobile devices. Digital Turbine invented the market for app installation and have a patent on ‘single-tap’ app installation to Android devices, but the business model is controversial, and the company have been accused of pushing ‘bloatware’.
Podcast #62 – Company culture with Renee Conklin
It’s not something that’s usually covered in quarterly earnings reports, but company culture can have a big impact on employees, customers, business performance, and the company’s stock price. This week on the pod, we’re joined by Renee Conklin, founder of RC HR Consulting, to talk about company culture – how to assess it, its impacts on business results, and what companies can do to attract and retain talent. Also, we chat about famous CEOs, the Great Resignation and driving tractors!
Podcast #61 – Investing in disruptive innovation with Simon Erickson
This week we were delighted to connect with Simon Erickson, founder and CEO of 7investing.com, to chat about a topic that underpins both the 7investing and Telescope Investing strategy – investing in disruptive innovation.
Simon shares his thoughts on finding and evaluating disruptive companies, why larger companies find disruptive innovation difficult, playing offence and defence in your portfolio, plus we chat about hype vs fundamentals, craft beer, and being neighbours with Morgan Housel!
If you’re a growth investor, this episode is pure gold – highly recommended listening for all Telescope subscribers.
Podcast #60 – Venture capital with Prantik Mazumdar
At Telescope Investing we focus on publicly-listed stocks, but investing in private companies is another option for investors seeking higher returns, and this is becoming increasingly accessible to retail investors through crowdfunding services. On this week’s pod, we’re joined by award-winning entrepreneur and founder Prantik Mazumdar, to get his insights on private equity and venture capital investing.
Prantik brings his extensive experience working with local enterprises in Singapore and as a business owner to the world of angel investing and venture capital. In a wide-ranging discussion, we talk about the key trends in the SE Asian startup scene, the qualities he looks for in private equity investments, and the personal and financial rewards of investing in sustainability.
Podcast #59 – Model portfolio Q3 review
It’s time for the Q3 review of our model portfolio, a collection of 15 stocks that we selected in January as our core investments for 2021.
Following a nice recovery in Q2, the model portfolio was steadily making gains during the third quarter, but on the 22nd Sep the market started trending downwards and growth stocks were hit harder than the general market, and the model portfolio lost 15.1% in value by the end of the quarter while the S&P lost only 6.1%.
Only eight out of the 15 stocks are showing positive returns from the inception of the portfolio in Jan, with just six of those beating the S&P. However in most cases, this underperformance is not a result of the company failing to execute, and was driven by macro-economic factors impacting the value of future cash flows, which growth stocks are far more dependent on than more mature companies.
In today’s episode, we dig into some of the key stories and updates for each stock in the portfolio.
Podcast #58 – When to sell
The Telescope Investing strategy is to ‘buy & hold’ – we seek to buy good companies and hold them for the long-term – but that doesn’t mean we never sell. This week on the pod we revisit our thoughts on when it might be the right time to sell a stock.