Several weeks ago, the stock of Ellie Mae, a SaaS that automates the grueling task of underwriting residential mortgages, got hammered when the company reported revenue weakness on lower than expected industry refinancing volumes and longer than expected ramp times for larger enterprise customers, prompting management to dramatically cut its full year revenue growth guidance […]
Moody’s is a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs), a title bestowed by the SEC on a handful of credit rating agencies, the top 3 of whom act as an oligopoly in the US debt ratings gambit. As you well know, Moody’s (and S&P and Fitch) fell into disrepute during the last financial crisis when […]
Greenbrier and Trinity (TRN) act as a duopoly in the North American railcar industry, together accounting for nearly 80% of total backlog, with both players taking market share over the last decade (GBX: 13% in September 2006 -> 33% today; TRN: 36% -> 44%; ARII: 21% -> 6%). Needless to say, the railcar manufacturing and […]
For many years prior to 2012, Tripadvisor was accused of “over-monetizing” its site, bombarding visitors with “pop-up” windows that redirected visitors to the sites of its OTA and hotel ad partners. In late 2012/early 2013, TRIP began replacing the antiquated pop-up model with in-line meta (so visitors could compare rates across different OTA and hotel […]
“People always think more about how new ground can be broken than they think about how existing institutions can be sustained or existing facilities can be maintained. It leads to a constant trap where we underinvest in old things, then old things disappoint us, then we feel a need for new things, then to satisfy […]