AYI: Quickly Passing Through the Eye of the Storm - Pricing Pressure and Asian Competition Are Re-Emerging As the...

Attached please find a slide deck outlining the feedback from our latest survey of lighting agents.

Canadian Banks: Earnings Season Was a Disappointment, It Could Have and Should Have Been Much Worse; Take a Gander at...

Heading into earnings season for the Big 6 Canadian banks, we were almost certain that a great deal of the discussion on the analyst conference calls would be centered around loan performance in...

Z/ZG: Set an Insanely Low Bar, Step Over It, Celebrate… Really Though, In the Context of a 4-5 Year “Scorched...

“Look, look, you don't have to be any good. I mean all you have to do is have someone less good along with you. That's the whole theory behind fishing” Murdock, Dwight...

HCG.TO: The IFRS-9 Accounting Shenanigans Continue

“Yes, because of forward looking, some of the economic scenarios have moderated. So our residential, despite the growth in the portfolio, some of that provision was released” Bradley Kotush.  Home Capital Group CFO. 1Q19 Earnings Conf. Call....

TRUP: A Comp No TRUP Shareholder Wants to See

Over the past 2-3 months, the competitive landscape for TRUP has shifted dramatically. First, Synchrony Financial (SYF) acquired Pets Best.   Synchrony will operate Pets Best as part of the company’s CareCredit division which offers a variety of credit...

TRUP: Story Time Is Almost Over

Every stock is a story, it’s always been that way.  Tens of billions of dollars are spent annually by corporations to establish the narratives surrounding their companies in the investment community.  At no point in our investment careers, has story-telling been a more...

RLGY: Collateral Damage in the Battle Between the Four Horsemen of the Real Estate Services Apocalypse

“I am on the hunt for new and bigger ideas that can change our company and even the industry. I know we have to keep thinking bigger given the industry dynamics and our need to create more shareholder...

TREX: It’s April 29th, but for TREX 2019 Is Over, Competition Looms Even Larger Following the Company’s Execution...

“We are very pleased with the current selling season, which will be for 2019 business. We had very good reception; we are going to take a lot of market share in the retail space with our...

Where's the Bid? A New, More Troubling Era In Canadian Housing

Over the past few weeks, we conducted a survey of more than 250 real estate agents across Canada. Click on the link below to view our presentation which outlines our research on the Canadian housing market at a high level and the critical findings from our...

AYI: A Question of Quality as Management Simply Makes It Up as They Go Along

Well, let’s chalk today’s price action to yet another example of the difficulties of predicting near term gyrations in any given stock.  Even with PERFECT information, we would not have predicted that AYI shares would rally 9%...

TREX: A Building Products Manufacturer with 40%+ Gross Margins Facing Rising Competition and Product Commoditization,...

“Most decking contractors I know go for the cheapest brand. “ Regional Decking Products Distributor A few years ago, we introduced Acuity Brands as a short idea. At that time,...

TRUP: The Pets Best Deal Could Mean Evisceration of “Other Revenues”; Stat Statements Suggest Rising Loss Rates...

Well that was unexpected.  TRUP shares traded off more than (-12%) today in response to the news that Synchrony acquired Pets Best, a leading pet insurance agency with more than 125,000 policies...

CM.TO: CIBC Breaks Ranks, Sort Of. The “Stage” Is Set for Increased Provisions Going Forward

“As you know, what drives our provisioning for our performing loans really has to do with the changes that we make to scenarios and to our economic outlook. So it really depends, sort of, quarter-to-quarter how our...

RLGY: Under Siege on All Sides with Consumer Brands in Decline, Restructuring Might Be the Only Viable Outcome

“At least given where we are now and where we think the biggest leverage is to change our company's operating performance, we do believe it is focused on the agent. And so you're likely to see us...

HCG.TO: With NIM Compression and Impaired Loans Up 65%+ YOY, HCG Played the IFRS-9 Remeasurement Game to Boost Earnings

“….right now, some of those predictive models are saying that there is going to be a more benign economic environment in the future, which would probably then lead to models to come up...

Z/ZG: Things You Didn’t Hear on the Conf. Call – The iBuyer Biz as “Table Stakes”, the Keller Williams Threat,...

“I still think that the target model that we've laid out, dating all the way back to the IPO, and again, at the Investor Day a couple of weeks ago, is the right margin framework for the...

TRUP: Management Continues to Tell Us All We Need to Know About the Structural Flaws of the Business in Their Own...

Against our better judgement, we actually listened to the TRUP 4Q18 earnings conference call live.  Typically, the combination of management’s flowing discussion of its outlandish and...

CM.TO/NA.TO/RY.TO: Bank EPS as Fiction – The Great “Remeasurement” Game Juiced EPS in 2018; Don’t Expect an...

“In the case of the IFRS 9 guidance on performing, there's a lot of assumptions that go into what falls into the performing and it could be anything from your assessment of volatility to...

AYI: 4Q18 Lighting Agent Survey - List Price Increases Have Not Been a Cure All for the Lighting Industry

List price increases are not a cure all for the lighting industry as the overwhelming secular trends weigh heavily

CTC: Relying on Those Living on the Edge While Leading with Your Chin Is a Scary Proposition

“One thing I do want to mention though that we learned for the recession as well is you have to remember the nature of our portfolio. Where we are typically a bit of a higher risk more of a near-prime portfolio, it...

TRUP: In a Fairly Uneventful Quarter, Management Reminds Us Why Rising Losses Have Created a Massive Pricing Problem...

“We own an insurance entity and we own it so that we can lower our fixed expenses and offer a better value proposition back to the consumers. “ Darryl Rawlings. CEO, Trupanion Inc....

Z/ZG: Who Could Have Predicted…. The Treacherous Transition from Quantity to Quality Crushes Another Lead Generation...

In our note following Zillow’s 2Q18 results we wrote the following about the changes to how leads are delivered for the company’s Premier Agent advertising program (subsequently dubbed PA...

ATGE: Don’t Let the Headline Numbers Fool You, the Business Remains on a March to Nowhere

To put it simply, ATGE trades like a company that generates mid-to-high single digit YOY organic revenue growth consistently. Every year for the past seven years, ATGE management (both prior and current) has dangled a mid-single...

The Tipping Point Has Been Reached - Introducing a New Pair Trade Long RDFN/Short RLGY, Update to our Zillow Short...

TRUP: Let the Numbers Tell the Story - No Matter How You Try to Spin It, Rising Losses Are THE Issue

“Changes in historical American Pet Insurance Company loss and loss adjustment expense are primarily due to changes in statutory accounting classifications, as well as our inter-company agreements, and are not due...

AYI: When Does “A Bit of Pressure” Equate to 350 bps? Lowering Price Objective to $89

“We are certainly seeing a bit of headwind in material cost, largely around the commodity metals, steel, aluminum, both of which -- more from a secondary impact of the tariffs. We don't purchase that much steel that are...

TRUP: 10 Critical Questions and Many Potentially Worrisome Answers

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to gather extensive feedback from bulls and bears alike about the merits of their investment thesis on TRUP.  One thing is clear: this is a highly contentious stock.  Bulls feel...

BIG: What Would You Do?

Somewhere in the Bay Area right now, a seasoned executive in the retail space sits in his office with a furrowed brow and clenched hands as he contemplates his move back to Ohio.  West Point grads are known for their tenacity in tackling a challenge, so there’s little doubt that Bruce...

Z/ZG: A Closer Look at the Homes Division - Is Profitability Really the Goal? Not When You Sell Homes at a 3-4% Premium...

“At this point, we're clearly bias towards scale over profitability, but because we've been selling the houses so much faster than we anticipated, the return on equity has been better...

HCG.TO: On a March to Nowhere, the Structural Flaws of the “New HCG” Have Started to Become Clear

For several years now, we have wondered aloud what HCG’s financial profile would look like in a scenario in which the company was forced to introduce true underwriting rigor to its mortgage origination...