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enterprisewired · 5 months

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Disney Shareholders Vote to Maintain Current Board Amid CEO Succession Concerns

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In a resounding decision, Disney shareholders have opted to retain the company’s existing board during Wednesday’s annual meeting, signaling their confidence in current CEO Bob Iger’s strategic vision to enhance Disney shareholder’s value and secure a capable successor. However, the outcome places heightened pressure on Iger to deliver tangible progress over the coming year or risk facing renewed activist pressure in the future.

Demonstrating Progress: Key Areas of Focus

Over the next twelve months, Iger faces the imperative task of demonstrating advancements across various fronts. This includes the imperative of transforming the company’s streaming services into a profitable venture, elucidating ESPN’s digital strategy, securing box-office successes, and nominating a successor with a well-defined transition plan.

“If Disney struggles to articulate a coherent strategy or defers the succession issue, activist investors may press for change in the forthcoming annual meeting,” noted TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz.

Streaming Profitability: A Crucial Milestone

A pivotal aspect of Disney’s strategy revolves around achieving profitability in its streaming TV businesses by the fiscal fourth quarter of this year. Since the launch of Disney+ in 2019, the company has been striving to demonstrate the monetization potential of its streaming platforms, encompassing Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Meeting this milestone would validate Iger’s strategic pivot towards prioritizing the streaming segment.

“Turning streaming losses into profits is paramount for Disney’s long-term viability,” emphasized Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin. “Cost-cutting measures in content production are essential to achieving profitability.”

Disney shareholders back Bob Iger’s leadership | World Business Watch

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ESPN’s Digital Transformation

Disney’s iconic sports network, ESPN, is undergoing a digital metamorphosis in response to evolving consumer preferences and market dynamics. The company is poised to introduce a tailored sports bundle in 2024, featuring ESPN’s linear network alongside sports channels from Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox. Subsequently, ESPN will launch its dedicated streaming service in 2025, offering personalized features catering to sports enthusiasts.

However, the proliferation of streaming offerings raises the challenge of consumer comprehension, necessitating clear communication of product differentiation and value proposition.

Box-Office Revival: Addressing Industry Challenges

Disney confronts the imperative of rejuvenating its box-office performance amidst a protracted downturn exacerbated by various factors, including pandemic-induced disruptions and shifting audience preferences. To this end, the appointment of David Greenbaum as president of Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios underscores the company’s commitment to revitalizing its cinematic offerings.

“Sustained box-office success is pivotal for Disney’s narrative and financial health,” remarked Creutz. “The studio’s ability to deliver compelling content will be closely scrutinized amid industry headwinds.”

Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity

Central to Disney’s long-term trajectory is the seamless transition of leadership following Iger’s tenure. The succession process assumes paramount significance, with internal candidates such as Alan Bergman, Jimmy Pitaro, Josh D’Amaro, and Dana Walden emerging as potential successors. However, identifying a suitable candidate capable of navigating Disney’s diverse portfolio remains a formidable challenge.

“Effective succession planning is critical to safeguarding Disney’s legacy and sustaining its growth trajectory,” highlighted Creutz. “Navigating leadership transitions amidst organizational complexity demands meticulous planning and execution.”

With Disney shareholders endorsing the continuity of Disney’s current leadership, the onus now lies on Iger and the board to chart a course toward sustained growth and innovation, ensuring the company’s enduring relevance in an evolving entertainment landscape.

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wolfliving · 4 years

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The Digital Twin Consortium

*Hey look! A new IoT consortium! I haven’t seen one of those in ages.

Contact: Object Management Group +1-781-444 0404 [email protected]

Object Management Group Forms Digital Twin Consortium with Founders Ansys, Dell Technologies, Lendlease, and Microsoft

Users to create standard terminology, reference architectures and share use cases across industries

NEEDHAM, MA – MAY 18, 2020 – Non-profit trade association Object Management Group® (OMG®) with founders Ansys, Dell Technologies, Lendlease and Microsoft, today announced the formation of Digital Twin Consortium™. Digital twin technology enables companies to head off problems before they occur, prevent downtime, improve the customer experience, develop new opportunities, drive innovation and performance and plan for the future using simulations. Members of Digital Twin Consortium will collaborate across multiple industries to learn from each other and develop and apply best practices. This new open membership organization will drive consistency in vocabulary, architecture, security and interoperability to help advance the use of digital twin technology in many industries from aerospace to natural resources.

Digital twins, virtual models of a process, product or service that allow for data analysis and system monitoring via simulations, can be challenging to implement due to a lack of open-source software, interoperability issues, market confusion and high costs. In order to ensure the success of Digital Twin Consortium, several leading companies involved in digital twin technology have joined the consortium prior to inception. This category of early innovators, called Groundbreakers, includes: Air Force Research Lab (US), Bentley Systems, Executive Development, Gafcon, Geminus.AI, Idun Real Estate Solutions AB, imec, IOTA Foundation, IoTIFY, Luno UAB, New South Wales Government, Ricardo, Willow Technology, and WSC Technology.

Membership is open to any business, organization or entity with an interest in digital twins.

"Most definitions of digital twin are complicated, but it's not a complicated idea. Digital twins are used for jet engines, a Mars rover, a semiconductor chip, a building and more. What makes a digital twin difficult is a lack of understanding and standardization," said Dr. Richard Soley, Digital Twin Consortium Executive Director. "Similar to what we've done for digital transformation with the Industrial Internet Consortium® and for software quality with the Consortium for Information and Software Quality™, we plan to build an ecosystem of users, drive best practices for digital twin usage and define requirements for new digital twin standards."

Digital Twin Consortium will:

Accelerate the market for digital twin technology by setting roadmaps and industry guidelines through an ecosystem of digital twin experts.

Improve interoperability of digital twin technologies by developing best practices for security, privacy and trustworthiness and influencing the requirements for digital twin standards.

Reduce the risk of capital projects and demonstrate the value of digital twin technologies through peer use cases and the development of open source code.

An ecosystem of companies, including those from the property management, construction, aerospace and defense, manufacturing and natural resources sectors will share lessons learned from their various industries and will work together on solve the challenges inherent in deploying digital twins. As requirements for new standards are defined, Digital Twin Consortium will share those requirements with standards development organizations such as parent company OMG.

Founding members, Ansys, Dell Technologies, Lendlease and Microsoft will each hold permanent seats on an elected Steering Committee, providing the strategic roadmap and creating member working groups.

Sam George, Corporate Vice President, Azure IoT, Microsoft Corp. said, "Microsoft is joining forces with other industry leaders to accelerate the use of digital twins across vertical markets. We are committed to building an open community to promote best practices and interoperability, with a goal to help establish proven, ready-to-use design patterns and standard models for specific businesses and domain-spanning core concepts."

"The application of the Digital Twin technology to Lendlease's portfolio of work is well underway and we are already realising the benefits of this innovation to our overall business," said Richard Ferris, CTO, Digital Twin R&D, Lendlease. "The time for disruption is now, and requires the entire ecosystem to collaborate together, move away from the legacy which has hindered innovation from this industry, and embrace Digital twin technology for the future economic and sustainable prosperity of the built world. Digital Twin Consortium is key to the global acceleration of this collaboration and the societal rewards we know to be possible with this technology and approach."

"Dell Technologies is proud to be one of the founding members of Digital Twin Consortium. As the rate of digital transformation continues to accelerate, industry-standard methods for Digital Twins are enabling large scale, highly efficient product development and life cycle management while also unlocking opportunities for new value creation. We are delighted to be part of this initiative as we work together with our industry peers to optimize the technologies that will shape the coming data decade for our customers and the broader ecosystem," said Vish Nandlall, Vice President, Technology Strategy and Ecosystems, Dell Technologies.

"The Consortium is cultivating a highly diverse partner ecosystem to speed implementation of digital twins, which will substantially empower companies to slash expenses, speed product development and generate dynamic new business models," said Prith Banerjee, chief technology officer, Ansys. "Ansys is honored to join the Consortium's esteemed steering committee and looks forward to collaborating closely with fellow members to further the Consortium's success and help define the future of digital twins."

Digital Twin Consortium members are committed to using digital twins throughout their operations and supply chains and capturing best practices and standards requirements for themselves and their clients. Membership fees are based on annual revenue.

About Digital Twin Consortium Digital Twin Consortium is The Authority in Digital Twin. It coalesces industry, government and academia to drive consistency in vocabulary, architecture, security and interoperability of digital twin technology. It advances the use of digital twin technology from aerospace to natural resources. Digital Twin Consortium is a program of Object Management Group.

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Note to editors: Object Management Group and OMG are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. For a listing of all OMG trademarks, visit https://www.omg.org/legal/tm_list.htm. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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helloyoucreatives · 6 years

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Waitrose kicks off the Christmas season.

Client: Waitrose & Partners Project name: Too Good To Wait Client: Martin George – Customer Director Rupert Ellwood – Head of Marketing Jo Massey – Senior Marketing Manager, Advertising Alia Ahmad – Marketing Manager, Advertising James Ward – Marketing Manager, Advertising Becky Hofstede – Assistant Marketing Manager, Advertising Chief Creative Officer: Richard Brim Creative Director/s: Feargal Ballance & Patrick McClelland Copywriter: Sali Horsey Art director: Zoe Nash Chief Strategy Officer: David Golding Planning Director: Hugh De Winton Managing Director: Paul Billingsley Account Director: Abi Robinson Account Manager: Kathryn Armstrong Account Manager: Rosie Snowball Account Manager: Emily Gower Project Manager: Rasha Noronha Media agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD Media planners: Geraldine Ridgway, Emma Hawkins Head of design: Alex Fairman Designer: Danny Edwards Emma Vincent-Pagden

TV: Agency producer: Louise Richardson Chris Battye Production company: Outsider Producer: Benji Howell Director: James Rouse D.O.P: Stephen Keith Roach Editing Company: Work Editorial Editor: Bill Smedley / Art Jones Post Production: Framestore Post Producer Josh King Colourist: Steffan Perry @ Framestore Music: SIREN Audio Post Production: Anthony Moore / Dan Beckwith @ Factory Studios

IDENTS: Agency producer: Hannah Needham Production company: MJZ Executive Producer: Lindsay Turnham Producer: Amy Appleton-Smith Director: Joy Kilpatrick D.O.P: Stephen Keith Roach Editing Company: The Quarry Editor: Bruce Townend Post Production: NineteenTwenty Post Producer David Keegan Colourist: Steffan Perry @ Framestore Music: SIREN Audio Post Production: Dan Beckwith @ Factory Studios

PRINT/OOH: Agency producer: Olly Ravaux Photographer: Con Poulos Production company: Hat Margolies at Lucid Representation Retoucher: Jon Webb Head of design: Alex Fairman Designer: Danny Edwards Emma Vincent Pagden Digital Designer Adrian Baker at Cain & Abel

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truthshield · 2 years

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Two Pet Health Stocks To Watch And One To Avoid

Pet Health Is Still A Growth Market Growth stocks have been getting pummeled this year due to fears of slowing growth, tightening margins, and recession but in some cases, the baby is getting tossed out with the bathwater. In this case, it’s more like the puppies and kittens are getting tossed out with the bathwater but the meaning is the same. Pet Health, estimated at $11 billion in 2021, is growing at a high-single-digit CAGR and it is expected to be resilient in the face of inflation and shifting consumer habits. In this light, we think the recent valuations on names like Petco Health And Wellness Company And Chewy are too good to pass up. MarketBeat.com – MarketBeat Petco Health And Wellness Navigates Inflation Needham issued an update on Petco Health And Wellness (NASDAQ: WOOF) in early June following a meeting with management. Management told them that not only were they able to successfully pass price increases through to their customer base but they saw little to no evidence consumers were trading down. This is significant news for the pet care industry due to the fact premiumization of products like food and care items is a driver of growth and bottom-line results. Needhan carries a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $30 compared to the broader consensus of Hold and $21.58. That target implies about 50% of upside for the stock with another almost 50% implied by the Needham target. Price action in Petco Health And Wellness hit a new low prior to the Q2 earnings report issued in late May. The price action bottomed in the wake of the report and is now retesting support at the key level of $14.60. Assuming this level holds as support, we expect to see the short-sellers begin covering as well and that (about 22% short interest) could lead stocks up to the $17.80 level very quickly. Chewy Gets Upgraded, Twice Chewy (NASDAQ: CHWY) was recently upgraded not once but twice adding strength to the idea these stocks are deeply undervalued. The upgrades come from Needham and Wedbush which both raised their ratings from Neutral to Outperform/Strong Buy with price targets in line with the Marketbeat.com consensus. The consensus is expecting about 50% of upside for the stock citing inelasticity in the industry and the prospect of widening margins as costs come down. Shares of Chewy are also suffering from short-selling but the short-covering has already started. The stock put in a bottom in late May/early June and it appears to be in reversal. The price action still needs to get above resistance at the $40.60 level but we don’t think it will be hard. The company next reports earnings at the end of August and should be able to easily outpace the current consensus estimate of $2.45 billion in revenue. Petmeds Is Late To The Game Petmeds (NASDAQ: PETS) was among the first pet health companies to go public but it is one of the last to embrace omnichannel selling and an expanded product line. That shortfall is costing the company in more ways than one and has resulted in dwindling sales even while its peers and the industry are growing. And don’t be fooled by the dividend, either. The company says it is committed to paying the dividend but it doesn’t look very safe to us at 6% of the share price and more than 100% of the earnings. https://ift.tt/nJGr8st https://ift.tt/jg3pfIh

#Saas #softwaresystems #productdevelopment #software #practice #optimization #accuracy #efficiency #productivity #softwareprojects #cracksthecode

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thesevillereport · 3 years

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In Focus: Airbnb, Bargain or Bust?

The last time I wrote about Airbnb (ABNB) was back in October 2020, shortly after the company filed its paperwork to go public. Not being one to chase overpriced and overhyped IPOs, I told anyone who would listen to get into Airbnb when it became public. Seven months after it's IPO the stock is trading well below it's high, but still above its IPO price. At this price level is Airbnb a bargain or a bust?

The road to being a publicly traded company has been rocky for Airbnb, which I wrote about here. To condense it, let;s just start with 2020. In late 2019, all signs pointed to Airbnb going public in early 2020, but then the coronavirus hit and stopped travel dead in its tracks, causing investors and analysts who anxiously awaited the Airbnb IPO to wonder if the company would make it out of the pandemic.

“Chaos isn't a pit, chaos is a ladder” - Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish, Game of Thrones

The management team of Airbnb survived the chaos of 2020 and was able to take the company public last December. After being priced at $68 per share, the stock closed its first day of trading at $144.71. By February of 2021 the stock price had traded to over $210 per share. Even though the world hadn't completely beaten COVID-19, investors bought into Airbnb because they saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Investors understood that on the other side of the pandemic was a pent up demand for travel and vacation, which would benefit Airbnb.

Since closing at $216.68 on February 11, 2021 the stock has been in a slide, and now trades at $150.23

What's Behind The Sell Off?

In mid February of this year, there was more negative sentiment surrounding the company than positive sentiment, which played a role in the sell off. Just a day after the stock closed at an all time high, Wolfe Research Partners downgraded the stock to Peer Perform from Outperform while stating the company's lofty valuation could not be justified.

Shortly after the downgrade, the company reported its Q4 2020 results, which saw revenue of $859 million beat Wall Street's expectations of $748 million, but the company lost $3.9 billion during the quarter, which was above the $3.1 billion that the Street expected.

In addition to the downgrades and the company’s Q4 2020 numbers not meeting expectations, investors have had to rethink the reopening trade, the investments made in company’s that would benefit from life after COVID.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has been a handful for places like the United Kingdom. Places like India and Brazil neverseemed to get a handle on the original variant of COVID-19. Just a few days ago Brazil reported 65,000 new COVID-19 cases and over 2,000 deaths within a 24 hour period. In the United States, Los Angeles is seeing a rise in coronavirus cases. Last Thursday the L.A. reported 506 new infections, the most since mid-April.

Globally and nationally, we’re still fighting the coronavirus, which has been another pain point for Airbnb.

Oh, and have you noticed the increase in Vrbo commercials? For those not aware, Vrbo is Airbnb’s competition. The company has been around since 1995, but in 2019 got a makeover and a rebrand. Vrbo is owned by the Expedia Group (Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbits, Trivago).

Vrbo has been on a mission to get hosts and to make sure that the world knows they exist. Vrbo has aggressively gone after Airbnb’s top hosts in an effort to bring them over to the Vrbo platform, Vrbo has even offered to transfer a host’s Airbnb rating to the Vrbo platform. Besides going after Airbnb’s top hosts, Vrbo has increased its advertising

spending from $72 million in 2019 to $103 million 2020. For anyone who wasn’t aware of Vrbo pre pandemic, the company wants to make sure that they are aware of them post pandemic.

Downgrades, earnings per share misses, a possible reopening delay, and a motivated competitor has done a lot to knock the shine off of Airbnb.

There is a bull case however for Airbnb. In May, Yahoo Finance reported analysts upgrades of Airbnb. The consensus among the 30 plus analysts covering the stock was that revenue in 2021 would come in at $5.4 billion, which if met wouldbe a 63% increase from 2020’s revenue. The analysts did however cut their price target to $166 per share, which is only 10.6% higher than the current stock price. Needham on the other hand didn’t upgrade the stock, it maintained its buy rating on the stock with a $194 price target.

Airbnb currently has a $91 billion market capitalization, which trumps Hyatt’s (H) 8$ billion market cap, Hilton’s (HLT) $35 billion market cap, Marriott’s (MAR) $46 billion market cap, and Wyndham’s (WH) $6.9 billion market cap. Of those four major hotel brands, only Hilton and Marriott reported higher revenue than Airbnb in 2020, and all but Wyndham reported higher revenue than Airbnb in 2019.

Based on the income statements of Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham, there’s an area where Airbnb holds an edge and others that the company needs to get under control to really be of value to investors.

On average the cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue for Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham in 2019 and 2020 was 62% and 69% respectively. Airbnb’s cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue for 2019 and 2020 came in at 42% and 52% respectively. But what Airbnb saves in its cost of doing business it spends it in selling, general, and administrative expenses. For Airbnb SGA in 2019 was 48% of revenue and in 2020 SGA was 68% of the company’s revenue. The other four hotels on average spent 25% of their revenue on SGA.

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky recently reflected on the company’s big advertising spend ($1.17 billion in 2020 and $1.6 billion 2019), which is bundled into the SGA expense, and stated the company has no plans to spend that much on marketing again. It appears the CEO is keeping his word, as sales and marketing expenses for Q1 2021 decreased by 27% from where it stood in Q1 2020.

Improvement to Airbnb’s income statement and balance sheet will go a long way in making investors happy, but before pleasing investors the company has to please its hosts, which they’ve recently addressed.

Airbnb recently announced 100 plus innovations and upgrades to make the host and user experience better. The upgrades provide more flexibility to users, makes it easier for property owners to become Airbnb hosts, and provides better support for its hosts and guests among other things.

Bargain or Busts?

The travel industry is worth $3.4 trillion in revenue, Airbnb’s 2020 revenue represents less than a half of one percent of that $3.4 trillion figure. There’s a lot of room for Airbnb to grow, but with COVID-19 still lingering, Airbnb's immediate future looks hazy to some investors.

For me, I’m still all in on Airbnb for the long term. I’m not thinking about Airbnb capturing 2% of the $3.4 trillion travel industry, I believe they can capture .05% of the market over the next few years, and that alone could have a significant impact on the company.

Before COVID-19 I used to associate Airbnb with going away, going far away. I’m going to L.A. or Paris, or London, or Toronto and I want to have a long stay, I thought about Airbnb. Now, after dealing with COVID-19, I associate Airbnb with getting out of the city and going somewhere suburban for a few days, even it's in the same state that I’m in. I believe this is important to Airbnb, as it will allow them to stay in growth mode as the politicians work out who can travel to where and when.

When international travel does open up fully, I expect Airbnb’s growth to go into overdrive for a few reasons. One, I believe the pandemic has made people comfortable working away from work and companies comfortable with not physically seeing their people every day. I foresee a jump in the number of digital nomads, getting an Airbnb wherever they want and working remotely.

Flexjobs, a website dedicated to helping people find remote work predicts 36.2 million Americans (22% of the workforce) will work remotely by 2025, which is an 87% increase from the number of people working remotely before the pandemic.

Lastly, I think when things are fully opened up, the population of people that I call the new millionaires, the people that made big crypto bets and big bets on bad names during the pandemic that paid off are going to spend that cash, and I think a sizable portion of it will be spent on travel, which will be another win for Airbnb.

Vrbo is coming, but there is enough room for more than one company in this space. How I envision work and travel changing over the next decade benefits both Vrbo and Airbnb, and makes Airbnb a bargain at its current share price. I remain extremely bullish on Airbnb as a long term investment.

#airbnb #travel #COVID19 #Pandemic #Vrbo #Expedia #RemoteWork #Investing #Investments #Stocks #StockInvesting #WallStreet #Money #FinancialEducation #InvestmentEducation #GrowthStocks

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ericvick · 3 years

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3 “Strong Buy” Stocks With Over 40% Upside Potential

In stock investing, the game is all about returns. At the end of the day, every investor wants to see the portfolio choices pay off, and bring a return on the investment. A wise investor looks to balance risk against the return.

In today’s environment, with markets generally up – the S&P 500 has gained 12% so far this year – the main risk for now takes the form of ‘local’ losses; that is, short term slips in a rising stock environment. To cover that risk, investors need to remember the other truth about the stock market: it’s a long-term play. Don’t expect to realize huge gains quickly, stay in for the long haul, and look for stocks that offer high return potential. That’s the key to investing success.

Using the TipRanks platform, we’ve located three stocks that offer investors a 40% or better upside for the year ahead, along with a Strong Buy consensus rating. They come from a range of stock sectors, have shown individual quirks in their recent share performance – and some of Wall Street’s top analysts have given them the thumbs up. Let’s find out why.

Tenable Holdings, Inc. (TENB)

We’ll start in the tech sector, where Tenable is a holding firm that bills itself as ‘the cyber exposure company.’ Tenable’s flagship product, Nessus, is a vulnerability scanner that allows users to find and close vulnerabilities in their networked systems. Along with its other products, Tenable’s line of exposure protection software gives customers a threefold advantage: to see, predict, and act. The product line is popular, and Tenable boasts over 30,000 organizations in its customer base, including more than half of the Fortune 500 companies.

Along with a large customer base and a product line that is growing indispensable in the digital world, Tenable has featured steady financial growth. The company has registered quarter-over-quarter revenue gains for the past nine quarters, and shows no sign of stopping. In the most recent reported, 1Q21, Tenable reported $123.2 million at the top line, up 4% sequentially – but 20% year-over-year.

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In other key metrics, Tenable reported $38.6 million in cash from operations, of which $37.6 million was free cash flow – an impressive 97% of the company’s cash flow. FCF was up a whopping 864% year-over-year. Tenable also reported more than 330 new enterprise platform customers in the quarter, 29 new customers with net contracts in the six-figure range.

Tenable has attracted attention from Daniel Ives, Wedbush’s tech expert rated in the top 1% of Wall Street’s analysts by TipRanks. Ives writes of Tenable, “TENB came out of the gates swinging in the March quarter as the company posted impressive revenue/billings upside along with stronger than expected guidance… We continue to view Tenable as one of our favorite cyber security names as the company’s expanded product portfolio, cloud strategic focus, high caliber management team, and risk/reward is very compelling at current levels.”

Ives gives TENB shares an Outperform (i.e., a Buy) rating, along with a $62 price target that implies a one-year upside of 68%. (To watch Ives’ track record, click here.)

From the Strong Buy consensus rating, it’s clear that Wall Street generally agrees with Ives. The stock’s 6 recent reviews break down 5 to 1 in favor of Buy versus Hold. Shares are priced at $36.88 and the $57.50 average price target suggests an upside of 56% in the next 12 months. (See Tenable’s stock analysis at TipRanks.)

Trulieve Cannabis (TCNNF)

Let’s shift gears, and look at the cannabis industry. Cannabis has, in the last decade, gone from being an illegal controlled substance to a big business, as major countries like Canada and Germany (for medical use only) have legalized the drug, along with more than 30 US states that have full or partial legalization. As the drug has grown more accepted – and its medical use has become more mainstream – a whole network of cannabis providers has grown up to meet the demand.

Trulieve is one of the big players in the US medical cannabis sector. Since the drug is still illegal at the US Federal level, medical cannabis companies in the States must operate on a state-by-state basis. Trulieve has taken a leading position in the Florida market for medical cannabis, where the company boasts a 51% market share in the nation’s third largest state – and the second largest state with legal medical use. Trulieve also operates in California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, boasts over 550 individual items in its product line, and offers a vertically integrated ‘seed-to-sale’ business model.

While the medical cannabis business in the US has to adapt to a wide range of legality regimes, preventing operations on a truly national scale, Trulieve has met the challenge and seen three years in a row of profitability. In the company’s most recent financial release, for 4Q20, the top line came in at $168.4 million, up 24% year-over-year to reach a company record. For the full year, revenues were $521.5 million, up 106% yoy. The company saw full-year net income of $63 million, up 19% from 2019, and $99.6 million in cash from operations.

Matt McGinley, 5-star analyst from Needham, likes Trulieve’s prospects going forward. He writes, “We expect FL to be 80%+ of Trulieve’s revenue in ’21, but new states should comprise 33% of growth. We think Trulieve’s balance sheet is in a strong position to accelerate the pace of M&A, and to concurrently sustain higher levels of capex…. We believe that the stock will rate higher on EBITDA growth, and believe the multiple is low for a company with such strong operating fundamentals.”

The analyst’s comments back up his Buy rating on the stock, and his $60.75 average price target indicates confidence in 46% share growth for the year ahead. (To watch McGinley’s track record, click here.)

With 9 Buy recommendations on record, the Strong Buy consensus rating on TCNNF shares is unanimous. The stock is trading for $41.37 and has an average price target of $69.61, suggesting an upside of 68% in 2021. (See Trulieve’s stock analysis at TipRanks.)

Snap, Inc. (SNAP)

Last up, Snap, is best known as the parent company of the popular Snapchat app. Along with Snapchat, Snap also owns Bitmoji and markets the Spectacles smartglasses. The common theme is the combination of social media and camera apps, letting users play with photo filters, create temporary stories, and record videos. Snap bills itself as a camera company, that uses social tech to reinvent personal photography.

Snap reported its 1Q21 earnings last month, and saw revenue rise 66% year-over-year, coming in at $770 million for the quarter. Free cash flow hit $126 million, up $131 million from the year-ago quarter. This was the company’s first positive free cash flow print since going public in 2017.

The solid financial display is underpinned by strong user growth. The DAU – daily active user – number grew 22% yoy, to a total of 280 million. The company divides its operations into North America, Europe, and Rest of World – and DAU was up in all three, both sequentially and year-over-year. This was the first quarter in which Snap’s Android users made up a majority of the DAUs.

SNAP shares are covered for Wells Fargo by analyst Brian Fitzgerald, who is rated #9 overall by TipRanks. Fitzgerald sees the stock with plenty of potential going forward, saying of it: “[We] remain bullish given strong usage/engagement trends and ample monetization runway across an array of dimensions (increasing ad relevance, new formats, increasing AR adoption, increasing share of e-commerce and gaming activity on platform, and narrowing the domestic/int’l monetization gap)…. we view shares as attractively valued at current levels given SNAP’s large and highly engaged audience, improved audience growth, rapid revenue growth and improving profitability profile.”

Along with these comments, Fitzgerald gives SNAP an Overweight (i.e., Buy) rating, and a $91 price target to indicate room for 68% upside in the next 12 months. (To watch Fitzgerald’s track record, click here.)

In recent weeks, Snap has picked up 36 analyst reviews. These include 29 to Buy, overbalancing the 6 Holds and 1 Sell, and giving the stock a Strong Buy consensus rating. SNAP sells for $55.78, and at $80.13 its average price target suggests a one-year upside of 43%. (See Snap’s stock analysis at TipRanks.)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

#Buy #potential #Stocks #Strong #upside

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themoviefort · 4 years

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Episode 6: RAD with Hollywood Mike Miranda

It’s Hollywood Mike Miranda... up in the fort with Hollywood Mike Miranda!

Listen to The Movie Fort podcast on your favorite platform: Spotify: HERE SoundCloud: HERE iTunes: HERE

Sticher: HERE

TuneIn: HERE

The Movie Fort is back and I’m still pinching myself that this episode happened because BMX legend Hollywood Mike Miranda came up to the fort for a screening of the 1986 film RAD.

Out of all the classic movies to come out of the 1980s, arguably no film has the cult following that RAD continues to have to this day, no matter what millennial pop culture writers claim. Yes, it was a box office bomb but found a thriving second life in video stores as millions of BMX obsessed kids around the country made it one of the top VHS rentals for several years running. (Back in the day, video rentals were charted like The Weekly Top 40 and RAD perpetually hovered near the top.) However, as VHS tapes gave way to DVDs and video stores were rendered extinct by streaming, RAD became a collector’s item that spawned a thriving bootleg market. Due various rights issues, it was never officially available on DVD until this year when a limited edition 4K restoration was released. (It immediately sold out and discs are going for $100+ on eBay.)

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But, in even better news, RAD is now available for digital rental or purchase on most streaming services. Click here to rent or buy on Amazon and watch along with us.

Finding a copy of RAD on the shelf at your local video store was an ‘80s kid’s version of the winning the lottery because it was always rented out.

The Two Greatest Showdowns of the ‘80s: Daniel LaRusso vs Johnny Lawrence and Cru Jones vs Bart Taylor. While RAD remains a picture perfect time capsule when it comes to everything that was so ‘80s about the ‘80s, what makes it unique in the realm of sports movies is that outside of Cru, played by Bill Allen, and his rivals on Team Mongoose, 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist Bart Conner and twin brothers Chad and Carey Hayes, the rest of the Helltrack field is filled out by the top BMX racers of the era playing themselves. And Hollywood Mike Miranda was one of them.

The Two Most Iconic Mustache Duos of the ‘80s: Thomas Magnum and his red Ferrari and Hollywood Mike Miranda and his pink Hutch.

I’ve been fortunate to be friends with Hollywood for several years and the fact that he came over to our house to watch RAD still makes my brain short circuit as I write this. We’d been talking about doing a screening for months and it was such a memorable night that I want build a time machine to go back to 1986 and tell my younger self what we’re up to in 2020. Before we fired up RAD, Hollywood and I watched the Dodgers beat the Angels. Along the way, we crushed a pizza and drank a few RAD themed amber ales from Alosta Brewing Company, a local brewery. And when those ran out, we may have drank a Modelo or two.

The description on the can is a chef’s kiss of perfection and the koozie is one that RAD fans will appreciate. When it came to the main event of watching RAD, Hollywood spun some fantastic tales about making film and what it was like to be in a movie directed by Hal Needham (you might know him as the director of Smokey and the Bandit and a slew of other classics).

We also talked about being at ground zero for the creation of BMX when he was a kid growing up in California’s Inland Empire and the thrill of becoming friends with his childhood hero Evel Knievel. (Yes, that Evel Knievel. As if there’s another one.)

And Hollywood’s story about Shaq and Bart Conner? It really happened.

#Rad #rad movie #hollywood mike miranda #BMX #bmx racing #cru jones #bart taylor #helltrack #the movie fort #1986 #80s movies #todd munson #podcast #dodgers

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andreacaskey · 5 years

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Coronavirus disrupts search, digital ad budgets

Analysts expect Google and Facebook will experience ad revenue declines in travel and other industries most affected by global efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus. On the ground, marketers and media buyers have been re-evaluating their near-term advertising strategies.

Loop Capital Markets analyst Rob Sanderson expects Google will see a 15% year-over-year decline in travel ad revenue in the first quarter and a 20% drop in the second quarter due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Last week, Needham analysts Laura Martin and Dan Medina said there is evidence of lower spending in travel, retail, consumer packaged goods and entertainment, which together, they estimate, represent 30% to 45% of Facebook’s total revenue.

Media buyers we heard from Wednesday shared a range of scenarios, with some not seeing any changes yet, to others making dramatic adjustments to near-term budgets. Some are even raising digital budgets.

Supply chain and demand concerns

Supply chain impact on inventory is starting to be felt in advertising spend. Scott Wright, senior PPC consultant at London-based e-commerce consultancy and agency Vervaunt, said a client with production in China began to grow concerned about inventory in February but expected to run ads for a couple of more months based on current stock. “As the situation hasn’t improved in regards to their supply chain,” said Wright, it’s expected “that this month some key products will go out of stock, so [Google Search and Shopping budgets] have been cut by 40% in the UK and Europe this month in anticipation.”

A luxury international travel business has cut budgets by more than 50% from previous months across all digital channels, said Michelle Morgan, director of client services at Louisville-based digital agency Clix Marketing. Morgan says the agency still has the flexibility to allocate the remaining budget to the channels and campaigns that are most effective, there’s just less to work with for now.

Some businesses have put a full stop on their digital ad budgets. “We’ve had two clients pause spending due to coronavirus,” said Tom Shurville, managing director of UK-based digital agency Distinctly. The clients — in hospitality and events industries — expect to keep advertising turned off until the coronavirus no longer affects gatherings.

Feeling Jittery

The uncertainty of it all has businesses of all types on edge.

Another Vervaunt client, a luggage retailer, hasn’t seen demand drop, but “the trends coming out of Italy has them cautious,” said Wright. The agency manages Search, Shopping, Amazon and Social for the client. Last week, Amazon revenue was down, but Wright said it isn’t clear yet if that is a trend. They expect to be pulling back on most of the client’s prospecting campaigns through this week, though the amount isn’t confirmed yet. Budgets will be managed daily on an ad hoc basis depending on how things look.

Alabama-based paid search consultant Josh Yates said his clients haven’t changed course yet, but that many are feeling nervous. Even those in sectors that would appear to be unaffected. One, an e-commerce brand with manufacturing in the U.S. and no expected inventory challenges, called to say, “Be ready to pull back spend.”

Bucking the trend

Not everyone sees budget-cutting as the answer.

As the tradeshow circuit dwindles, some exhibitors are looking for other ways to fill their sales pipelines. “[I] just talked with one client who is seeing several tradeshows get canceled, and wants to put more into digital to make up for the lost leads they usually pick up at events,” said Tim Jensen, PPC campaign manager at Clix Marketing.

Amalia Fowler, director of marketing at Vancouver-based Snaptech Marketing, said one of her clients, an upstart food tour business, is raising rather than pulling digital budgets. With aggressive growth goals for the year, including a new tour to promote, the company increasing search budgets in the face of a downturn. “It is giving them an edge on the big travel companies,” said Fowler, “so it may end up working.”

WARC still projects an annual increase of 7.1% in global media spend this year. That’s based on an expectation that marketers will simply shift budgets to the second half of the year, which will drive up competition and prices for media. That means advertisers may continue to feel a squeeze long after coronavirus fades.

The post Coronavirus disrupts search, digital ad budgets appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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lindarifenews · 5 years

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Coronavirus disrupts search, digital ad budgets

Supply chain and demand concerns

Feeling Jittery

The uncertainty of it all has businesses of all types on edge.

Bucking the trend

Not everyone sees budget-cutting as the answer.

The post Coronavirus disrupts search, digital ad budgets appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Coronavirus disrupts search, digital ad budgets published first on https://likesfollowersclub.tumblr.com/

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alpha-copy-alpha · 5 years

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Netflix Can Lose 4 Million Subscribers in 2020

The latest predicament Netflix may face is a probable loss of up to 4 million subscribers in the coming year. Netflix has currently faced peer pressure because of the increasing number of streaming services available. These streaming services are a lot cheaper than Netflix and they may affect Netflix’s subscribers’ growth referred to as the Netflix killers.

Netflix has never faced any problems in maintaining the subscriber’s growth or in attracting the audience in the past. Thought the service had seen the decrease in the growth of subscribers in the 2nd quarter of 2019, but it may turn to usual in the 3rd part. In September, Netflix has announced that they are near to the 160 million subscribers all around the world in which 60 million subscribers are from the U.S.

The recent prediction of subscriber drop comes from Needham and Company’s Laura Martin. While explaining the cause to Bloomberg, Martin states that Netflix’s most significant issue is the incapability to compete with the price of new streaming services, including Apple TV+ and Disney+. Such as Disney charges $6.99 each month, but Apple TV is cheaper at $4.99 every month. When compared to them, Netflix prices start with $8.99 with restrictions depending on the resolution as well as the number of streams. Several Netflix subscribers even pay $15.99 per month.

Martin has suggested Netflix launch a cheaper package in comparison to its competitors priced between $5 to $7. These services include Apple TV, Disney as well as the upcoming service of NBC Peacock. NBC still has to ensure the price of Peacock, but it is expected to cost less than a Basic plan for Netflix. Martin’s suggestion is not to drop the price of the membership package and lose money but instead provide an ad-support tier as an option. This dual ad-supported and the ad-free strategy to maintain the market value as well as contend with lower and new price set.

Netflix faces issues with an advertisement that nobody wants to an ad on Netflix, and that includes Netflix itself. Netflix with ads rumor has surfaced in the past regularly, causing Netflix to usually shut the rumors by persisting that they have no plans to add commercials. Perhaps, Netflix can get the benefit generated from ads. However, it is also important to understand advertisements that can be tough to sell to the existing subscribers. A study in 2019 in the UK has found that Netflix may lose its 57% of the subscribers if the commercials are added to streaming service, making it an unproductive choice.

Robert Green is an avid technical blogger, a magazine contributor, a publisher of guides at mcafee.com/activate, and a professional cyber security analyst. Through her writing, she aims to educate people about the dangers and threats lurking in the digital world.

Source : Netflix

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joshuajacksonlyblog · 6 years

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Bitcoin and Various Altcoins Now Accepted by H&M Distributors

In its slow-but-steady crawl towards mass adoption, Bitcoin (BTC) will now be accepted at American wholesaler H&M Distributors.

Not to be confused with the Swedish multinational clothing-retail company Hennes & Mauritz AB, H&M Distributors instead deals in cost-effective lighting — specifically, replacement ballasts, lamp holders, and accessories for lamp holders.

Though this may not be the most glorious or exciting announcement in the Bitcoin’s history of acceptance as a means of payment, it nevertheless is another brick laid on the road to mainstream adoption.

H&M Distributors will use the cryptocurrency e-commerce platform Chimpion to facilitate purchases with the market-leading cryptocurrency.

However, Bitcoin isn’t the only digital asset accepted by the company. Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dash (DASH), Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), and others are also accepted. (Though, it’s legitimately difficult to imagine anyone purchasing replacement ballasts with Bitcoin Diamond.)

The decision to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes after the company realized that the nascent asset class breaks down financial barriers (by removing the need for banks) and allows it to sell its products to a wider international market.

H&M Distributors founder and CEO Herb Needham stated in a press release:

After more than 20 years in the business, we consider ourselves experts in specialty lighting. Accepting cryptocurrency payments allows us to share that expertise with even more clients by removing many of the barriers that made it difficult to sell internationally before. What sold us was the settlement system, which allows us to convert crypto payments to a USD equivalent right away.

The press release also claims that the acceptance of cryptocurrencies allows the company to “pass on even more savings to [its] customers” by way of “drastically reduced transaction fees […] and freedom from chargebacks.”

What do you think of H&M Distributors’ decision to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Bitcoin and Various Altcoins Now Accepted by H&M Distributors appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.

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marymosley · 4 years

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DLA Piper advises the underwriters in Upland Software’s US$119 million common stock offering Share this

DLA Piper represented the underwriters in the US$119 million registered public offering of 3,500,000 shares of common stock of Upland Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: UPLD), an Austin-based leader in cloud-based tools for digital transformation, at a price of $34.00 per share.

Upland granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an additional 525,000 shares of common stock. The underwriting syndicate was led by Credit Suisse as lead book-running manager for the offering. Jefferies, Canaccord Genuity and Needham & Company are acting as book-running managers. Craig-Hallum Capital Group, Raymond James, Roth Capital Partners and William Blair are acting as co-managers for the offering.

“We were pleased to deliver our extensive technology and capital markets experience to this transaction,” said John J. Gilluly III, global co-chair of DLA Piper’s Corporate practice, who led the firm’s deal team.

In addition to Gilluly (Austin), the DLA Piper deal team advising Upland included associates Drew Valentine, Chen Zhang and Rebekah Rodriguez (all of Austin).

DLA Piper’s global capital markets team represents issuers and underwriters in registered and unregistered equity, equity-linked and debt capital markets transactions, including initial public offerings, follow-on equity offerings, equity-linked securities offerings, and offerings of investments grade and high-yield debt securities.

DLA Piper’s global Technology sector lawyers work across practice areas and offices to support technology clients – from startups to fast-growing and mid-market businesses to mature global enterprises – doing business around the world.

The post DLA Piper advises the underwriters in Upland Software’s US$119 million common stock offering Share this appeared first on Legal Desire.

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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Cybersecurity Firms Post Strong Quarter In Spite Of Gloomy Economy

FireEye saw 6%year-over-year profits growth in the 2nd quarter, with a shift towards line of work that facilitate remote work.

Image:. david becker/Reuters.

Aug. 13, 2020 5: 30 am ET. |. WSJ Pro.

The coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdowns have left few intense spots in the worldwide economy. The cybersecurity industry might be one of them.

Numerous business in the sector are reporting strong second-quarter outcomes after the shift to remote work exposed staff members to a new selection of cyber risks, according to analysts and executives. The exit from the office has forced lots of services to speed up digital improvements, they say, solidifying patterns in the cyber industry toward cloud infrastructure and subscription-based software application sales.

” They killed it– company after business,” said Shaul Eyal, an interactions and infrastructure software expert at investment bank Oppenheimer & Co. “The indisputable message is that Covid is in some methods benefiting security costs.”

Corporate spending on security devices that is typically tailored for “on-premises” defenses in workplaces could drop by 12.6%this year, according to. Gartner Inc. The research study company projects investing on app security, identity management tools and other defenses that are key for remote workforces will more than balanced out businesses’ cutbacks on hardware.

Financial investment in security for cloud-based services, which tend to provide more digital flexibility for companies, might leap by as much as one-third this year, according to Gartner. Many cybersecurity firms reporting strong outcomes this quarter are riding that surge in need, said Alex Henderson, a cybersecurity expert at investment bank Needham Group Inc.

” From a spending viewpoint, for cloud infrastructure, you’re going to see a strong back half [of 2020],” Mr. Henderson said.

At the security firm. FireEye Inc., which saw 6%year-over-year earnings development in the 2nd quarter, the pandemic emphasized two unique line of work within the business.

Profits tied to on-premises products fell nearly 12%from the exact same quarter last year, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, while cloud offerings, threat-intelligence platforms and consulting combined had an almost 26%jump.

That latter group now accounts for 55%of FireEye income, up from 46%in the second quarter of 2019 and 40%in the same duration of 2018.

” That’s where we’re investing most of the dollars, and we’re most focused on growth in those locations,” FireEye Chief Financial Officer Frank Verdecanna said. He explained the profits outlook of the product-focused service as “fairly flat to a little declining,” with FireEye executives focusing on revenue rather than expansion.

Check Point Software Application Technologies Ltd., which sells services and home appliances, likewise highlighted the jump to the cloud in reporting a 4%bump in profits compared with the second quarter of in 2015.