Explore every episode of the podcast Behind The Idea

We couldn't wait to get to our year-end review on Behind the Idea, so we're sharing it before your Thanksgiving week travel. It's our 100th episode, and the last episode of our Gone till November special series, a more introspective quartet of episodes. We also discuss on the podcast one other reason why we've released this early.
Topics Covered

3:00 minute mark - The Alphies - categories

4:15 - Favorite guest

12:15 - Favorite story

27:00 - Most interesting idea

35:16 - Most surprising stock performance

41:15 - Least surprising stock performance

46:30 - Best performers

49:15 - Listener awards


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Over the last two weeks, Mike and Daniel have pitched respective long ideas. This week, we looked backward at mistakes we've made in our investing careers. The theory goes that your investing mistakes also amount to your investing tuition, and that true wisdom is learning from others' mistakes, rather than your own. I can only hope there's something for you as listeners to learn from our mistakes, as broken down on today's podcast.
The investments in question date to 2016 and 2017. Mike went long on Gilead Sciences (GILD) based on their scientific prowess and low multiple, and even as his thesis sailed on him with Gilead's acquisition of Kite Biopharma, he couldn't find the exit door. Daniel went long Uniti Group (UNIT), even having concerns about its failure to cover its dividend and what the huge yield portended, let alone the binary risk that was introduced into the stock. We hope there are lessons to be learned from our mistakes.
Topics Covered

4:00 - Mike's bad choice - Gilead Sciences (GILD)

6:00 - What was compelling about GILD?

10:45 - At the time of purchase, did you have any concerns?

14:30 - How did the investment play out?

18:30 - When did you realize it wasn't working?

25:00 - What are the lessons learned?

28:00 - Daniel's bad choice - Uniti Group (UNIT)

29:30 - What was your thesis?

38:00 - Specific downside concerns

41:00 - When did you realize it wasn't going well?

55:30 - What lessons did you learn?


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This trailer previews our initial two shows on our newest podcast channel, The Investing Edge, from Value Investor's Edge Live hosted by J Mintzmyer, and The Razor's Edge, hosted by Daniel Shvartsman and Akram's Razor.

Our excerpt for Value Investor's Edge Live is from our first episode, where J Mintzmyer speaks with Robert Bugbee of Scorpio Tankers about the company's comfortable cash position and the pending catalyst of IMO 2020.

Our excerpt from The Razor's Edge is from the first episode, which covers Disney, Netlfix, and the streaming universe. Daniel Shvartsman asks Akram's Razor about whether Netflix can solve a budding challenge - too much content on the service.

The Investing Edge is a podcast channel on Seeking Alpha that features shows from different Seeking Alpha authors, with a focus on their unique investing style. Authors will speak with CEOs and industry experts, break down key market stories and topics, and share insights on how they research new investments.

The first two shows on The Investing Edge are:

Value Investor's Edge Live, hosted by J Mintzmyer of Value Investor's Edge. The show will feature J's conversations with publicly traded shipping company CEOs, sector experts, and fellow deep value investors about their companies and investing approaches.

The Razor's Edge, hosted by SA podcast host Daniel Shvartsman and Seeking Alpha author Akram's Razor of The Razor's Edge.



 
 
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Everybody's a burrito expert, which makes it a lot harder to have an edge. That makes investors susceptible to their own psychological biases. Behind The Idea looks at debut Seeking Alpha author Stephen Moseley's thesis on the market's overreaction to reports about Chipotle's food safety, and how our biases keep us from seeing the story straight: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4146340-chipotle-fact-checking-gray-area-reports.
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Teva Pharmaceuticals, the Israeli generic pharmaceutical giant, has fallen on hard times recently. But does that mean they actually have the government over a barrel? Seeking Alpha's Behind The Idea looks at Christiana Friedman's case for why Teva is a heads you win tails you don't win investment. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4134268-whether-restructures-gets-acquired-teva-buy
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John Schnatter, the eponymous Chairman of Papa John's, stepped into the political quagmire of NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem, and subsequently stepped down from the CEO role. An opportunity for investors? Seeking Alpha's Behind the Idea looks at Akram's Razor's case for Papa John's to go private - https://seekingalpha.com/article/4139703-papa-johns-time-order-takeout.
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Seeking Alpha editors Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman go behind the idea to discuss Amit Ghate's thesis on controversial tech company Energous(WATT). The small tech company announced big news - FCC approval for one of their technological designs - shortly before the end of 2017 and the stock's price more than tripled overnight. Amit Ghate argued that the company was playing investors in his article: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4135027-energous-succeeds-stock-market-game. We look at how hype manifests
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Safety in Value, a Seeking Alpha Marketplace author, joins us to discuss his Bluegreen Vacations thesis. He likes the stock as it trades below its previous deal price, and likes the underlying business as well. We discuss those elements, the risks to parent company BBX Capital's bid, and, because we couldn't resist, how this fits into Joel Greenblatt's investing philosophy.
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Through three episodes to this point on Joel Greenblatt's You Can Be A Stock Market Genius, Mike and I have discussed what we like about his famous special situation investing strategies, and what doesn't work. We've also shared our enthusiasm for the light touch he applies to his writing, and the way he doesn't appear to take himself too seriously.
Chapters 7 and 8 bring that feeling home. Chapter 7 because it shares how Greenblatt advises his readers to do the actual research, and one component is to borrow ideas from other investors. It's an obvious concept when you think about it, but it also suggests a touch of humility that plays out throughout the book. We look at Greenblatt's sources and favorite books to understand the rest of the book better.
Then, Chapter 8 is the shortest chapter, and it underlines Greenblatt's entire philosophy as I understand it. Basically, investing and growing your money can give you time and options later on. When active vs. passive remains a hotly contested topic, and when nobody is satisfied with even a 10+ year bull market, it's worth remembering that you should invest if you enjoy it, and the goal is to buy you time to do the things you want to do with the people you want to do them with, and nothing more or less.
We discuss the philosophy and the minutiae on our concluding episode about Greenblatt's book.
Topics Covered 3:40 minute mark - The highlights of Chapter 7
8:40 - Coattail riding in today's market
18:40 - Thoughts about sources listed in the book and their relevance 22 years later.
21:00 - Reviewing Greenblatt's favorite books
27:00 - The philosophy: money is time. Do we buy?
35:30 - Final dad jokes and notes from the book.

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Investors looking for value stock investing opportunities with catalysts ahead will be interested in Jorge Robles' perspective on UK low-cost gym operator Gym Group. The company has a reasonable competitive position, a misunderstood path to profitability, and an attractive free cash flow yield. Mike and Jorge explore the catalysts to realize the stock's value, competition within the industry, the impact of private equity ownership on companies, and the role Brexit might play in weightlifter behavior. 
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Chapters 5 and 6 of You Can Be A Stock Market Genius find our hero and author, Joel Greenblatt, walking on the wild side, as he looks at bankruptcies, LEAPs, restructurings, and other 'odder' corners of the market. Bankruptcies and similar topics in these chapters share some of the classic special situation traits of spin-offs and the like, but they also extend to a messier area of the market. So what holds together? We discuss that as well as some of the lessons Greenblatt drops in these chapters.
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We continue our discussion of Joel Greenblatt's classic book, You Can Be A Stock Market Genius, with a focus on chapters 3 and 4.Chapters 3 and 4 of the book are the ones everyone remembers, especially re: spin-offs. The principles Greenblatt lays out - shareholder mismatch, the opportunity to find overlooked ideas, the chance to do close reading - all seem to be relevant today, and yet spin-offs don't seem to be as attractive a category. We break that down as well as risk arbitrage and merger securities.
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We are big fans of Joel Greenblatt and his book, You Can Be A Stock Market Genius. We decided to break it down to see how it applies to today’s market, what key lessons are, what the best quotes from the book are, and our favorite Joel Greenblatt dad jokes. We start with chapters 1 and two, which lay out Greenblatt's mindset for investing.
Topics Covered 3:30 minute mark - Breaking Down Chapter 1 - The Greenblatt Mantra
7:30 - The individual investor advantage
14:30 - The efficiency of the markets
17:45 - Chapter 2 and the persistence of Greenblatt's approach
24:30 - Different investing styles for the individual investor
28:30 - Whither the value factor?
35:30 - Key quotes and jokes

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Bluegreen Vacations (BXG) is a timeshare developer in a curious situation - its majority owner pulled a bid for the minority of the company due to a since resolved lawsuit, but the shares trade well below the previous offer. Timeshares draw their own questions, and the market has been more volatile since the bid was pulled. We discuss the idea and what that could mean for shareholders and special situations investors going forward.
Topics covered: 5:00 minute mark - Overview of the busted merger arbitrage story.
8:45 - The timeshare industry and the underlying ups and downs therein
16:30 - Working down the income statement
20:00 - Breaking the Bass Pro Shops lawsuit down
23:00 - Manhattan club, time shares in NYC
31:30 - How does sales operation of a time share work?
33:30 - Time share business model and why does BBX Capital need to pay a big premium?

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Two things we usually don't do on Behind the Idea are talk about big picture macro-economic ideas, and delve into asset classes outside of stocks. We've focused on individual investing ideas through the vast majority of our episodes over the last 18 months, and that's where we've made our bones.
But Mike Taylor rejoins the podcast this week after paternity leave (congrats Mike!) and he's jazzed up about Ray Dalio's recent argument that a paradigm shift is coming. So jazzed up that he invested in GLD, GDX, and GDXJ itself, based on Dalio's article.
Gold leads to a lot of psychological analysis and self-consideration, and to considering the philosophical basis for an investing strategy. Without spoiling it, I have the more skeptical, 'what is behind the results that gold has achieved it in the past' orientation, while Mike has the more instrumental, 'gold has proven to be a ballast to many a portfolio, so why not' approach.
Topics covered: 2:30 minute mark - Introduction to Ray Dalio and his recent article
5:45 - What stands out in the argument
11:30 - Whether these shifts can really explain the market's direction over the decades
16:30 - The trade-off between higher pricing and lower future returns
26:30 - Discussion of "gold bugs" and the historical reasons for owning gold.
31:30 - What makes gold the way it is?
37:30 - The difference between owning gold and indexing (or is there one?)
50:30 - Why will this time not be different?
 
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We speak with Ed Silverman, a longtime follower of the industry who has run the blog Pharmalot for over a decade. Now on StatNews, he joins us to share his insight on the industry and the pressures its facing, and to follow up on our discussion on Walgreens from two weeks ago to see how these pressures might affect the company.




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We continue our special November series. Mike shares his long thesis for Varian Medical Systems, an industry leader in oncology treatment devices that has a lot of attractive business aspects, though it's valuation is also challenging. Daniel tries to probe the thesis for any gaps, but the moat here seems quite strong.
Topics Covered

5:00 minute mark - Introduction to Varian Medical Systems and the business case

12:40 - How much does it matter that there are two revenue lines in the income statement? Oncology vs. Proton and Product vs. Service

19:30 - Any reason to think they are transforming more to a service business? 

24:30 - Market and customer relationship strategy... moat around business.

31:00 - Is a throughput based model something to be concerned about?

36:00 - Valuation

53:30 - The under the radar aspect of VAR.


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Sum of the parts stories. Legacy PC makers. Investing with Michael Dell. Those are three things that, over the past decade, have caused investors heartburn.
Thomas Lott published a top idea last week that comes out tomorrow on Dell which combines each of those elements. The combination of the legacy Dell business, its acquired EMC business, and the 80.6% stake in VMWare makes for a compelling value, he argues. And yet, he's not the first to make that argument, and DELL has languished meanwhile.
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Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) operates at the intersection of health care and retail. While it appears safer than many retailers, its performance has been familiarly poor. We look at the work of Trapping Value, who has been following the company for nearly two years with a focus on the bullish opportunity. We look at the changing thesis, the reimbursement pressures Walgreens faces, the pressures it's had holding on in face of a changing climate, and whether a low multiple makes up for that.
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Cars.com (CARS) drew a surprising deal of interest from the Seeking Alpha community, which made it clear that we hadn't dug deeply enough. So we're revisiting it with one of the commenters on that article, CBanks40, a.k.a Cliff Banks. President and founder of the Banks Report, an online report focused on the auto retail industry, he has a lot of experience following CARS and had a lot to say on the company.
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This episode of Behind the Idea continues the interview I conducted with Akram's Razor, author of The Razor's Edge and longtime tech investor and Seeking Alpha author. We have the show notes below, and you can check out part one for background. Part one drilled in more to the PagerDuty (PD) short thesis, including why Atlassian (TEAM) has put a target on its smaller competitor, and what the limits are to PagerDuty's model and strategy.




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We speak with longtime Seeking Alpha author and tech investor Akram's Razor about the software as a service (SAAS) sector and how it is changing with everybody already a believer in the cloud and subscription models. We focus on PagerDuty and the newly public company's tough competitive landscape, and why Atlassian may be twisting the screws on it.


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On this sneak peek episode of Let’s Talk ETFs, Seeking Alpha’s newest podcast dedicated to the burgeoning ETF space, host Jonathan Liss is joined by ExponentialsETFs CEO Phil Bak, to discuss Phil’s ‘aha’ ETF moment, after which he was hooked on ETFs for good. Tune in every Wednesday starting July 10 for full-length episodes of Let’s Talk ETFs. Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss a single episode
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We've seen as big a rush of IPOs as there has been in some time. CrowdStrike appears to be one of the more impressive ones, though it's also fully valued. The company claims to have a better model for cybersecurity, involving more of an end-to-end service that is adapted to the cloud.
We try to understand whether the company's moat is knowable for a non-tech expert, and how we might inform ourselves of that as general investors.
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Let’s Talk ETFs is Seeking Alpha’s newest podcast. Each week, a different guest and host Jonathan Liss will take an in-depth look at a particular aspect of the rapidly evolving Exchange-Traded Fund space with a focus on how investors can best utilize ETFs to reach their investing goals. In addition, Let’s Talk ETFs will catch you up on all the most important ETF news including new fund launches and closures, top performers, and other notable ETF investing news from the previous week
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We break down a short idea from Seeking Alpha contributor BOOX Research on this week's Behind the Idea. The stock? Cars.com (CARS), a legacy media company spun off and trying to make it in a competitive web-driven world. The multiple is low, but is it low enough?
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We return to discussing 3M Company (3M) with Michael Boyd, Seeking Alpha author and owner of Industrial Insights on the Seeking Alpha Marketplace. He was bearish about the company as of April, so we wanted to get his take on what led the company to this point, how they could change his mind, and what he is watching for going forward.
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We kick off a special November series where we stop breaking down other people's ideas and try to dissect our own. Daniel shares his long idea on Stitch Fix, a fast-growing e-commerce clothing company that also will have to face a lot of competitors and skeptics as it tries to scale to profitability. Mike plays devil's advocate to interrogate the thesis.
Topics Covered

3:30 minute mark - SFIX thesis

6:00 - What do you like about SFIX?

11:00 - Actual experience with Stitch Fix

20:00 - Business model

25:00 - Growth prospects of retail clothing market SFIX is operation in

31:00 - Where does SFIX fit in the market of fragmenting consumer preferences?

34:30 - How does SFIX handle inventory management?

37:00 - Is SFIX's customized really a big advantage over other retailers?

46:00 - How much choice do consumers really have?

52:00 - Valuation discussion


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Mall and retail real estate investment trusts (REITs) don't on the surface seem like a likely battleground for investors on Seeking Alpha. They are a relatively obscure sector of the market, one layer abstracted from the underlying retail business. And the business of owning real estate and lending it out to retail companies seems boring enough.

We talk about Simon Property Group (SPG) this week, and break down the intrigue around these companies.
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What's going on with 3M Company? The Q1 earnings report led to the company's worst month in at least a decade, and concerns over its future growth prospects. SA author Michael Boyd argued that this was overdue, and that there are more fundamental issues going on. Does that make sense? We review the company's recent challenges, its history of innovation, and its dividend-oriented investor base to try to find some answers.
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Starbucks is one of the great American growth stories of the last 25-50 years. That story is starting to slow, and Seeking Alpha author Atlas Research argues that the stock is a short as management denies the reality. We break down the author's argument and whether the story - declining traffic, management mis-incentives, increasing competition - checks out, and if so, what that means for the stock.
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We take a last bite at the apple with another discussion on Kinder Morgan. Seeking Alpha author Dividend Streamer, who has focused on Kinder Morgan in his Seeking Alpha time, discusses how he carves up the company's cash flow and what he sees as the company's enduring advantages.
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Our first podcast on Kinder Morgan (KMI) two weeks ago was not super well-received, so we brought on one of our critics, Seeking Alpha author and current KMI bull Kirk Spano, to discuss the company further. We get into some of the criticisms we had of the company - its use of non-GAAP metrics and the underrating of its commodity pricing exposure - as well as some of the criticisms readers had of us. Kirk also lays out his bull case for the company.
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Trupanion sparks bulls' and bears' passions even as it takes care of our cats and dogs. We bring on The CrickAnt, a Seeking Alpha author who focuses on insurance companies, to break down Trupanion's positioning and the particularities of the insurance industry. He highlights the biggest challenge the company faces - the need to gain market share while also increasing its bottom line.
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Kinder Morgan (KMI), one of the unsung market stories of this decade, is on the comeback trail. We look at recent coverage on the stock as well as a company presentation from March and notice a few familiar themes that remind us of 2013 or 2014, before the crash in the stock happened. Have investors learned their lesson from last time around, and has the company?
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You either get having pets or you don't. The same can be said for the Trupanion (TRUP) bull and bear cases - the true believers are able to produce pages of compelling research making their case either way, unable to sway one another.

We start with a bearish article which picks apart the bull case as a way into the stock. We look at what the right category for Trupanion is, whether its effect on the petcare world will be positive in the end, and where that leaves the company and the stock.
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We round out our Boeing 737 MAX 8 related coverage by speaking to a pilot. Mike interviews his friend Matt, who flies for a US airline. He shares his insights on the mechanics of flying and what might go wrong, and so what investors might want to watch for as the 737 MAX investigations continue. He also breaks down the difference between Airbus and Boeing, which really comes down to a stance on how to best insure safety.
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Boeing continues to grab headlines as the hows and whys of the recent Ethiopian Air crash are dissected by various authorities. Madhu Unnikrishnan, editor of Skift Airline Weekly, joins Mike Taylor and shares his views on the development of the 737 MAX 8, what is reasonable to expect from the review process, and how big of an impact these events might have on the company.
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There are three sorts of stories we've gravitated towards in the past 95 episodes of Behind the Idea:

Value traps and/or value plays, the sorts of junk we might invest in. Examples: Cars.com (CARS), AT&T (T), Dell (DELL), Kelloggs (K) from the short side.

Growth stories that break our value-oriented brains. Examples: Amazon (AMZN), Shopify (SHOP), Crowdstrike (CRWD), Lyft (LYFT), PagerDuty (PD) from the short side.

Battleground stories or news stories. Examples: Boeing (BA), PG&E (PCG), Chipotle (CMG), Trupanion (TRUP).


This week we cover Teladoc (TDOC), which falls squarely in categories 2 and 3. The company is a fast grower on the top line, but it's yet to crack break even profitability metrics. We've published many short ideas on the company on Seeking Alpha, but we recently published a PRO+ top idea by Value Alpha that takes the long side. As with many of these stories, there are both exciting things going on and questions raised that deserve a closer look.
We break down the long case, and then we raise our questions. Beyond assessing the Teladoc story itself, we also get into what we look for in growth stories like this, and what it means to invest in an execution based story.
Topics Covered
3:00 - Assessing the long case

8:15 - Market leadership and the total addressable market story

13:45 - Teladoc's revenue model and Value Alpha's valuation model.

19:00 - Pricing vs. valuation rears its head

22:00 - Teladoc's industry position and is it a real moat?

27:45 - Valuation arbitrage and the messiness in the story

31:00 - What about the short case?

36:30 - The significance of the 'execution-based' story

40:00 - The reliance on acquisitions and the trends in visit fees.


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Boeing (BA) is in the news for all the wrong reasons. In light of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, businesses, travelers, and governments have raised concerns and doubts about the company, and its strong moat and ongoing rise as a business has fallen into doubt as a result. Investors have been trying to work out the impact this might have on the stock.

We discuss whether Boeing's moat is as strong as it seems, whether its ex ante valuation made sense, and where the stock might head from here.
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Big IPOs attract attention as investments and also for what they mean in the economy at large. Lyft isn't the biggest IPO expected, but as a preview to Uber and as a company in its own right, it raises a lot of questions. We discuss whether there's a value to the company and a moat that will give it a competitive edge over the years to come.
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We take our third look at JD.com (JD) by speaking with Mithra Forensic Research, an analyst who wrote a bearish piece on the company in May that seemed to play out. We discuss whether the company's accounting issues - delayed payments and financing-fueled revenue growth - have abated, why China companies often show up in short-sellers sights, and what to make of JD's investments in other Chinese companies.
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The cannabis sector has had a ton of interest in the markets over the last few years as it struggles towards legitimacy and normalcy. We saw this on Behind the Idea when covering Canopy Growth in October and when covering Aphria and its controversial acquisitions in December.

With that in mind, here's a preview of the newest Seeking Alpha podcast, The Cannabis Investing Podcast. This podcast will speak with industry experts and analysts to see where this sector might go. Check it out!
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It's easy to take shortcuts in investing and to make conclusions based on patterns, trends, or what the consensus is or isn't. It's something we talk about on Behind the Idea a lot.
Lester Goh has gone well beyond the headlines and basic analysis in his work on JD.com, and he shares the reasons he is bullish in the e-commerce titan despite its rough year. We get into the details, the headline thoughts, and why investing in Chinese companies really isn't that different than anywhere else.
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Bulls and bears for a given stock are often depicted as pitted directly against one another, but oftentimes bulls and bears agree on most parts of a stock. It can be that the interpretation on one or two key details changes the whole outlook for a stock. We discuss DaVita Healthcare for a third time, this time with Ethan Watkins, who is betting against the stock. We hit on themes shared with our discussion with last week's bull, but with a different bend and conclusion.
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Healthcare is difficult as an industry unto itself, as a political issue, and as an area to invest in. We revisit Davita Healthcare by speaking with a bull who argued that we were missing pieces from the puzzle last time we covered the story. And as we discuss, it becomes clear that the messiness around healthcare may be with us for a while, and one way or another it may create opportunities for anybody who can understand it fully.
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We take one more look at the developing story around PG&E. Barron's writer Alexandra Scaggs joins Behind the Idea to discuss the moving parts, including the latest boost to the shares from a Citigroup research note. We also discuss the gaps in modern markets around climate change and flood insurance, the political influence that might come to bear, and whether the claims bill is going to overwhelm everything else.
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Since we spoke about PG&E a few weeks ago, the company has filed for bankruptcy and the stock has basically doubled. Those are usually not successive acts in a one-month period, so what's going on? We ask WYCO Researcher, a Seeking Alpha author and expert on bankruptcy proceedings, to walk us through the PCG's fall, the recent stock price rise, and why there's still a lot of money to be lost for shareholders (in his view).
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It's a special edition of Behind the Idea, as we're talking about our own book. Specifically, Mike's position in the ProShares Short QQQ ETF (PSQ), an inverse ETF for the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ). A short-term oriented, ETF position based on a technical/momentum strategy: it seems like an anathema to the typical Behind the Idea fare. But there's a method to Mike's madness, and we try to pick it apart.
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On this week’s Behind the Idea, we jump right into the long case for a beloved dividend company and notorious corporate name, Altria, ticker symbol MO. We speak with Atlas Research about his bull case for Altria as a stock that will beat the S&P 500. There are the recent concerns around vaping, the break-up of the Philip Morris merger, and the ESG angles and squeamishness around owning a cigarette stock. Depending on your predilection, that’s either a recipe to stay away or the very reason to buy. Atlas is on the long side and makes the case as we grill him on this week’s Behind the Idea.
Topics Covered2:45 minute mark – reviewing the past few years for MO and the bull case8:15 – The obvious value story, but is it…too obvious?11:45 – Looming liabilities for Juul?15:15 – Looking at the Phillip Morris merger18:15 – The ESG angle21:45 – Addiction driven models24:15 -The MSA’s legacy28:15 – What role does cannabis play for Altria?34:15 – The economics and regulatory outlook for vaping38:15 – Summing up the investment case40:45 – The classic sin stock story 
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