Research

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Buybacks in aggregate have been a waste of capital:  There is ample evidence that management teams of most companies should be questioning the value of large buybacks. On average, they were not rewarded, yet we have seen 17 announcements this week, including from… 202402_Buybacks_are_Not_Particularly_EffectiveDownload

This note is intentionally written to be brief on each of the ten investment views. Each topic could probably be addressed with dozens of charts, arguments, and counter arguments. We did our best to channel Mark Twain – and took the time to write the short letter. We would be thrilled to discuss any of

Click here to read Trivariate’s recent research note on Technology Strategy.

Early in 2024 we wrote that many of the most idiosyncratic Technology stocks were “Old” Technology, and many of the most macro stocks were “New” Technology.  We also observed that both of these cohorts seemed to have generated alpha in the last year and did not have particularly high correlation to each other.  Low correlation

Click here to read Trivariate’s research note about the biggest opportunities in Consumer.

There is not much debate about the US consumer – it is slowing.   Whether it’s last week’s retail sales, rising 90-day credit card delinquencies, or a slowdown in auto demand, there’s ample evidence that the consumer is beginning to retrench.  Our proprietary gauge of consumer activity shows a marked slowdown.  However, we (and evidently COF

Click here to read Trivariate’s recent research note on Technology Strategy.

No one wants to manage a portfolio of US equities for the next several years and not have exposure to AI. A decade from now, they do not want to say, “I missed the theme because I could never make the valuation work,” or “there were so many fake-AI companies I wanted to avoid” or

Several investors have recently mentioned to us that they are increasingly nervous about the strong price momentum in software and semiconductors.  Software with below average revenue growth that is accelerating, as well as AI-related semiconductors have strongly appreciated since the beginning of 2023.  This strong performance has occurred with average volatility vs. history and with