Confluent has once again disappointed its shareholders, and that includes me, and after several quarters of what I would describe as proof of the company’s inability to monetize its technology, my patience is exhausted. For the second time in 18 months, the company described a usage optimization paradigm amongst its cloud native customers that is…
The earnings of several tech companies have been released this afternoon. Confluent’s earnings were reasonable, and belied some concerns that have held the shares in check for a few weeks. Guidance, while typically muted was better than feared. Upstart reported very strong numbers and upside guidance; the shares were up 27% pre-market. Surprisingly weak numbers were reported by Blackline, and its…
Summary Confluent shares have surged 30% in the past month, driven by accelerating revenue growth and significant profitability improvements, making it an attractive buy despite past volatility. The company reported a 25% revenue increase, with cloud revenues growing by 42%, and raised its Q4 revenue forecast, indicating strong future performance. New product introductions, including Flink…
The commentary that we are in the process of publishing suggested that I would take some steps to retain the net long exposure at or slightly above 135%. It fell a bit last week because of the increase in the NAV of the portfolio. So, to keep the net long exposure consistent, I have added…
The weather here is definitely that of midsummer and perhaps it has impacted the cognitive processes of investors. Most headlines have proclaimed that tech is on fire and companies such as Nvidia, Apple and NetApp are reaching new, all-time highs daily with lots of hype and fluff. I won’t get too down on NetApp as…
Sale of 100 Dynatrace and purchase of 200 shares of Confluent The market continues in a risk off pattern this Monday morning. Many stocks are still reacting to the perceived read-through from the results of MongoDB. As I tried to suggest, Mongo’s issues are grossly exaggerated, and really are not representative of what is actually…
Confluent and Perion Yesterday two of our portfolio companies reported. One did well; the other result was a disappointment. At the moment, we are not taking any action on either stock in our high growth portfolio. That said, the forecast growth projected by Perion makes it difficult to hold in a high growth portfolio. On…
Purchase of 400 shares of Confluent This morning we bought 400 shares of Confluent bringing our holding in the high growth portfolio to 1200 shares or about a 3% weighting. We paid $23.49 for the shares, and the total cost of the transaction was $9410. This brought our current margin balance to $209,335. Confluent is…
Sale of 200 shares of Crowdstrike and 250 shares of Monday.com-entire position. Purchase of 400 shares of CFLT; 300 shares of PCOR; 200 shares of AFRM; 600 shares of SentinelOne; and 200 shares of GLBE I started 2024 thinking there would be a few weeks of consolidation after the strong run at the end of 2023. The…
Summary Confluent’s most recent earnings forecast disappointed investors, leading to a 42% drop in share price. The company’s growth is being constrained by macro headwinds and a slowdown in customer adoption of new use cases. Confluent is the leader in stream processing and has acquired Immerok to expand its capabilities with Flink, which is expected…