Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Get Daily Recap Feedback

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Back to today

Lululemon: Deep Dive Analysis

Lululemon’s Q2 revenue fell 4% and Americas comparable sales 12%, as markdowns, tariffs and activewear rivals pressure its premium apparel model.

LULU $11B
Hated Moats 6 clicks

From X

@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

On Applovin Ecommerce Ads $APP. (From Ecommerce Playbook podcast 3 weeks ago.) ** "So a couple things, number one: it turned out to be the third, the third largest investment out of all the channels that we, that we run for our clients over that period [Black Friday], which is wild. And that the new kid on the block popped up into the third spot... like bucked the trend. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to see material, like orders of magnitude and investment into this channel for, for our clients in, in 2026 on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the holiday. So my prediction, one last point on Black Friday: third largest investment channel, but still a relatively small portion of the whole for the weekend, a little less than 5%. So, but my prediction for this coming year in 2026 is that Applovin is going to be 15 percent, 20 percent of the total investment in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And the indication, like the reason why, is because number one, we can deploy a lot of media dollars really fast because there’s so many impressions available, and number two, it’s performing. So the media dollars actually flowed into Applovin towards the end of that period, which is an incredible signal. So the AppLovin trend was peak, not peak on Friday, high levels on Friday, down a little bit on Monday, Tuesday, the peak was actually on Monday. I remember, you know, when this conversation first started with more than a year ago, October, right, 2024, the initial conversation was like what if this could be the third platform and some of our, as these sort of incrementality tests went through that sort of just seemed to be coming to fruition. And I would figure out like how am I going to make, if I was running an e-com brand, I would, I would say to myself, how am I going to, how am I going to make this 20% of my media investment this year? I was trying to explore in YouTube, my, my third bet would absolutely, absolutely be on AppLovin. I think what we’re saying here is like that’s happening basically is the Applovin ads is the third platform now. And so it’s time to get on." https://t.co/PBUOSe899T
@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

Just hammering this home. For simplicity's sake, let's use round numbers for 2025: 1) J&T Order Volume Grows: 75% y/y 2) Tiktok & Other Customers Grows: 40% y/y 3) J&T Grows Market Share from 27% in 2024 > 33% in 2025 (disclosed in the 1H25 Report) 4) Non-platform % of revenue goes from 0% > 10% in 2025. All the data-points line up. Takeaway: It can be true that J&T grew 75% y/y, AND Tiktok is slowing to 40% y/y orders growth (and 30% y/y GMV). - Market narrative of Tiktok competition increasing is likely wrong. - Means that Shopee's recent spend is not a defensive move or coming from a weakened position. - In fact, they're pressing harder, while competition is weak (That's just how they operate. They waited to grow Monee loans, until the digibanks started blowing up. That's why you see an inflection in loan growth 2 years ago. Compare that to when Indo digibank NPLs started blowing up, and you'll see the correlation). Included pictures of the math (thanks ChatGPT). $SE $1519.HK
@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

$SE is down -45% over the past few months. The prevailing bear case seems to hinge on two points: 1) Rising fear of TikTok Shop competition, and 2) Shopee reinvesting more heavily into logistics, capping margins at ~0.7% of GMV this year vs. prior expectations of ~1.2%. The concern is that this spend is defensive - a necessary response to TikTok rather than a choice. But alt data is telling a different story. TikTok Shop’s Southeast Asia GMV growth has slowed materially over the past few quarters - from 70%+ in 2Q25 to ~30%+ by late 2025. That’s only modestly above Shopee’s own growth rate. More notably, TikTok’s relative share vs. Shopee in Indonesia (~50% of regional GMV) has effectively flat-lined over the past year. If this data is directionally right, Shopee’s ~50 bps of reinvestment looks discretionary and offensive -widening the moat - rather than a defensive reaction to competitive pressure. And critically, that implies the margin compression is temporary, not structural. Oh, and both Shopee & Tiktok are raising take-rates. Not usually the sign of a competitor trying to aggressively take share... Curious, what am I missing? Is the -45% drawdown really just “2026 margins down > negative 2026 earnings revisions > stock down,” even if margins are likely to re-expand next year? And Shopee emerges with a wider moat after? The competitive backdrop looks like it’s improving, not deteriorating...
@MultiplesCap

Multiples Capital on X

It's always amazing for me to see $expe stock getting pummelled evertime there is AI disruption related sell off in the market. Expedia is a platform, for an AI app to replace it, one will need to build something equivalent, get all the hotels to list it there (as inventory) and manage the bookings. Not that it can't be done but it's not same as replacing a SaaS company. Instead I see Expedia using AI to navigate the change. It's more likely that AI replaces how users find hotels on Expedia vs via google search now than the former happening. Also, it's a super recession proof business model. Time will tell for sure :)

Investor Letters

All letters

Celsius: The Pepsi Put

Celsius holds 20% of the U.S. energy-drink market and 40% of sugar-free sales, but its $1.65 billion Alani acquisition complicates…

PEP $179B
TSOH Investment Research 7 clicks

AppLovin Deep Dive: Not A No Brainer

AppLovin is down 48% YTD after its first guidance miss, with revenue 1% below expectations and EPS 2.5% short, reviving fears of an adtech…

APP $104B
Capitalist Letters 6 clicks

TSOH Weekly Roundup (09/04/2026)

TSOH Weekly Roundup covers Costco’s $4.99 chicken supply chain, Celsius’s 20% energy-drink share, and California utilities’ wildfire…

COST $398B
TSOH Investment Research 5 clicks
WDAY · long

Workday INC

Workday shares have declined since February 2024 as the market has turned against SaaS stocks.

WDAY $46B
Value Investors Club 1 click

Dollar Tree: Weathering The Storm

Dollar Tree’s $1.25 opening price and multi-price assortment supported 10% two-year comparable-sales growth, outpacing Walmart U.S.

DLTR $22B
TSOH Investment Research 1 click

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

108 publications

Newsletters 91

YouTube 4

Blogs 12

Seeking Alpha 30 of 165

Nominate a publication

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

69 accounts
Nominate an account

Investor letters we follow

78 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.