The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring financial educator and author Jared Dillian has been released. Listen here.
"...at some point money will shift back into Tech..." - this is pretty pointless, the question is when?
I believe for Darktrace it will be soon, if not now. Obviously, RI's exodus cause the plummet in share price in general but II will have to stay invested. If they pull money out from some stocks, they will have to invest the money into some other stocks. Fundamentally, Darktrace stands out in a crowd. The business has been growing quarter after quarter, they are still recruiting and expanding offices while others have firing freeze or made redundancy. No only there is no profit warning but the company is in profit. Of course, this is only my theory and the market is full of manipulation, so don't take my words too seriously.
ToffAppleton1, about the R&D spending. I have mentioned this before, the British, not just investment funds, but the general public is clueless about the tech companies. I have been in the tech industry for over 20 years, when I just started I was surprise that so many US tech giants had their branches here. Then I realised, it was through acquisition of British startup. Regardless of the size, all British tech companies will end up in the same fate. I have no doubt Darktrace will fall into hands of US, it is only a matter of time.
Now back to the topic about R&D spending. AI engineers/scientiests in US earn $200k-500k a year, while salary in here is under £120k. In few years back, salary was up to only £80k for principal-level but got pushed up to £120k due to scarcity of AI talent. However, it has since fallen back to under £90k as improvement of software libraries (Keras, Pytorch) means you don't need many PhD to write all code from scratch. On the other hand, about 40% of Darktrace's business come from US, and they have to pay fat dollar for sales people in the state. This is a simple math, sales cost dominated by US dollar, and R&D predominantly in 'cheap' UK, then the fraction of R&D appear to be a lot smaller.
High R&D cost of US companies is the very reason why they are all in heavy loss. In contrast, low R&D spending while keeping high R&D output is a virtue that should be celebrated. That is the reason why Darktrace is in profit.
Here is another one
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-11222789/amp/CITY-WHISPERS-Short-sellers-bets-against-Boohoo-hit-record-high.html
Darktrace fate still with private equity
Takeover talks between Darktrace and US buyout group Thoma Bravo may have fallen apart this month, but the fate of the cyber security firm still remains with private equity ownership, according to one source close to the deal.
Thoma Bravo, whose investors are thought to have baulked at the price, cannot table a new offer for another six months even if it wanted to.
But the source said a private equity player would be likely to make a swoop for the £2.5billion group in the coming 12 months.
Whether the City would welcome another buyout of a British tech firm is another matter.
Nothing new but better than listening to children's fight. Here is the except mentioning Darktrace
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/shares/hedge-funds-betting-against-investments-beat/
This week The Daily Telegraph reported that famed short seller ShadowFall had bet against cybersecurity firm Darktrace, which ranked as the 20th most popular stocks among customers of Interactive Investor.
Matthew Earl of ShadowFall said he was concerned about the business’s long-term competitiveness. “It does not spend much on research and development relative to rivals,” he said.
However, Gavin Launder, who holds the company in his £296m L&G Growth fund, said this was not a concern. He said: “Lower R&D spending than peers is a fact, but this is in part due to the nature of the product and the total figure is rising anyway. As they are artificial intelligence products, they improve themselves on the job, learning as they go.”
Knew it was under attack from shortsellers, there's no other explanation.Previous attacks resulted in up to -15% in a day, so arguably this attack is less successful. Now that it is out, the SP should rise for at least 2,3 days.
Watchman,
The market is still growing. Proofs:
- major competitors e.g. crowdstrike, sentinelone are still growing
- we still see cyberattack on the news frequently
'AI' is not a market, cybersecurity is a market. AI is only a tool to make the cyber defense stronger.
https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/theres-no-shortage-growth-recently-081231053.html
I believe profitability will attract more institutional investors to buy in. Hope the SP will rise back to 500p before end of the year.
Rare positive press report
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/there-is-light-over-the-horizon-analysts-tell-darktrace-investors-bw8zsrdm2
It’s hardly been the best week for Darktrace, the cybersecurity company whose shares slumped by a third on Thursday, but clients of Jefferies were told to look beyond the inevitable “short-term volatility” resulting from Thoma Bravo, the private equity fund, saying that it would not proceed with a potential takeover bid. In fact, Charles Brennan, an analyst at the bank, reckons it’s the perfect time to take a punt on the stock as he resumed coverage of the company with a “buy” recommendation.
Ending the bid process should “enable investors to focus on the core fundamentals of a business executing well, with leading technology in a very attractive end market”, he said.
Darktrace’s full-year results were, as a whole, pretty positive. It said that customer numbers had grown by 32 per cent last year, while revenues were up by 46 per cent to $415.5 million. Although sales fell slightly short of the $417 million guidance because of a $3.8 million restatement relating to 2021 revenues, Brennan said “it should be no cause for concern”. The shares rose 42¼p, or 12.5 per cent, to 379¼p.
a sad day. The queen was probably one of the most famous, recognisable person in the world.
I just googled to find that the funeral day may be a bank holiday but I don't believe it will fall on tomorrow, too soon.
You guys are not listening or reading. There was an interview by Times or Telegraph, I forgot, ask Darktrace insider, he replied he would only even consider when £8 a share was on the table. Why not £8.35? Because it is estimate, you don't want to put precise number like £5.64B, hence the round up.
London really has a way to kil tech companies. Twitter didn't drop half as much when Elon Musk decided to terminate the deal and that's when Twitter's business was still in deep ****. Why are we made to feel like we've done something wrong, that we've picked a wrong stock while the business is at its strongest ever?
Darktrace handled it badly. I believe the leak came from Darktrace as TB would never want the SP to go up before making an offer. Now looking back the form 8.3/8.5, the big shareholders offloaded some of their shares, they must have known. They will buy them back. But, still, I lay most blame on the people who dumped relatively mild volume of 300k shares for 360p which triggered the avalanche.
I've just top up tiny bit at around 346p. It only bring down my average by a few p but I can now say proudly my average is only £3++ (fact is £3.995). It is not the first time the SP be so volatile, I've learned when not to sell and now is not the time. One next thing I should really master is .. when to sell.
Never mind October result, today's result is already excellent. As answered in Q&A, the Federal division is not expected to generate revenue in H1. So although the business is expected to be strong, but I don't expect surprise in the next trading update. Darktrace has laid out the full year result, it is now only up to the market to decide what they want to do with it. One possibility is a large UT today and SP goes up tomorrow.