Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Submit an Article

X

Negligible Capital

Everything we have picked from this writer, newest first.

24 stories Visit Negligible Capital

@negligible_cap

Negligible Capital on X

The rising tide is lifting all AI threatened boats… but should it? Some weekend thoughts as the saaspocalypse seems to be winding down -- TLDR: Long software, short consulting / IT services is interesting: Consulting and IT service names like ACN, CTSH, INFY, GLOB, etc. have rebounded sharply alongside enterprise software names (eg. CRM, NOW, WDAY, TEAM blah blah blah) recently. These moves have been driven pretty much entirely by factor rotation - the rebound in consulting names comes from software’s new AI tailwind rather than being earned by their own fundamentals $ACN, for example, is up 50% in the last two months since the June lows, despite posting their 2nd consecutive guidance cut last quarter -- $CTSH up 67%, $GLOB up 40%, $INFY and $TCS both up around 20%. Despite the rebound, most of their results were very “meh” – several misses in growth / guidance expectations (largely attributed to conflict in the middle east, which probably has some merit), leading to some violent selloffs (Eg. Accenture dropped 18% on June 18 after earnings) Meanwhile, software as we all know is seeing genuine acceleration in some cases, especially in their AI-related revenue metrics, and the narrative is quickly evolving to one in which software is likely to benefit from AI (largely due to strong moats) The same can’t be said for IT services names. Unlike software, where AI is seemingly becoming more additive for their platforms, AI is likely to be structurally deflationary for labor-based IT service models. The current pricing model faces disruption as enterprises seek greater efficiency in delivery and shift towards more outcome-based work. Customers are likely to demand service providers pass on AI productivity gains via lower pricing, especially for contract renewals. Also clients are delaying IT spend due to concerns over rapid AI investments / prioritization of spending elsewhere (eg. IBM’s pre-release, which saw consulting revs miss expectations, among other issues). The growth uncertainty alone likely puts a ceiling on multiples Anyways I know I’m making some very broad generalizations and am probably wrong and this isn’t financial advice but I’ll close it out reminding everyone that Accenture has 800k employees
@negligible_cap

Negligible Capital on X

*META COULD SPEND UP TO $10B/YEAR ON ANTHROPIC AI: NYT So $META is like 15%+ of Anthropic's ARR? "At one point this year, Meta internally projected that it could spend as much as $10 billion annually on Anthropic’s A.I. models, said two of the people, who declined to be identified discussing private information. That would have formed a major chunk of Anthropic’s yearly revenue, which the start-up estimated in July would pass $65 billion." - NYT
@negligible_cap

Negligible Capital on X

70% FY28 revenue growth is incredible, but if you were an $NVDA bear before that call, it’s very unlikely that view has changed (sure maybe funding shorts get covered) The bear argument is more intact than ever. Nvidia’s demand, while very robust, still comes in part from largely unprofitable companies/labs which are of course dependent on Nvidia for financing Jensen addressed these concerns directly, saying "frontier labs sales are skyrocketing, their margins are fantastic…they're generating profitable tokens…they're only limited by the amount of compute” The bear argument isn't going to be solved by fantastic numbers in any given quarter, it will take lots of time to be proven right or wrong
@negligible_cap

Negligible Capital on X

*PALO ALTO'S ARORA EXPLORED ACQUIRING DATADOG: INFORMATION $DDOG currently a $80B company "Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora has never shied away from deals, acquiring more than 40 companies in the eight years since he took the helm of the world’s biggest standalone cybersecurity firm. But over the past 18 months, Arora’s appetite for acquisitions has reached a new fever pitch as he expanded the company’s products to handle new AI threats as well as capture more revenue from existing customers. For instance, he explored acquiring Datadog, which sells software that helps businesses identify security threats and monitor how cloud applications perform, and Okta, which helps companies ensure workers have access to the right systems, according to two people with knowledge of the situation."