Research

Level Set – Union Labor, Energy, and Four Years in a Row

Profitability matters, and one of the most significant expenses for many companies is labor. Since COVID, labor shortages have driven enormous pay increases resulting in a material margin impediment for many companies. Union labor has caused structurally lower margins for many mature businesses for decades, and the consistent wage increases when inflation was low were

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Where Could AI Disrupt Revenue or Improve Costs?

Over the last few months, we have continued to publish our thoughts on artificial intelligence and its potential impact on US equities.  So far, we have established a few key conclusions from our evolving research: AI is one driver of the stock market performance this year, as AI stocks have outperformed growth stocks excluding AI.

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Level Set – The Low Probability Narratives

It is difficult to create an economic and corporate earnings narrative that explains the projected Fed path and recent market movement. The WIRP function on Bloomberg is the most common gauge of current interest rate perceptions. It shows that interest rates will be 25bps lower in six months, and the consensus rhetoric is that will

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Is It Time To Look At Healthcare Stocks?

For net-long healthcare investors, the last few years have been a particularly challenging time. Only a quarter of healthcare stocks have beaten the market over the last two years, the lowest percent of winners in at least two decades. Over the last few months, few investors have asked us about the healthcare sector.  We thought

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Level Set – Thoughts from Our Recent Travels

We have put forth the idea that the Fed will be more hawkish than what is in the price, as low unemployment and high CPI will prevent an incrementally dovish stance. Following a recent round of investor meetings, we do not think we have an out-of-consensus view – at least among equity investors. The potential

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Which Companies are Good and Bad at Buying Their Own Stock?

We believe that one of the most important roles of the senior management team of a company is to be good stewards of capital.  As such, we regularly analyze management decision making related to capital uses and the market’s reward or punishment for those actions. Today, we decided to evaluate the efficacy of corporate buybacks from two

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