To say this has been a horrible year for investors in high growth IT space is somewhat akin to the statement made by the Emperor of Japan announcing its defeat and surrender of his country in August 1945 to the effect that the war had developed “not necessarily to our advantage.” This has been the…
Okta-Can this sow’s ear ever return to silk purse status? Stocks have been cratering! IT stocks have been cratering more! Even shares of cyber-security companies have fallen with the HACK (HACK) ETF, which incorporates the major cyber-security vendors down by 30% on a year-to-date basis. But Okta, the leader in the identity management category, has…
It has been a difficult season to be an investor in high-growth tech. The economy is thought to be on the cusp of a recession. Supply chain issues can plague vendors. Investors seem to believe that high-growth tech is particularly risky. Investors seem to believe that future earnings and cash flow should be discounted at…
Looking at Splunk in the context of the great rerating It was reported Thursday by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), that bullish sentiment had reached its lowest point in the past 30 years. At the moment, the sentiment gauge shows that just 16% of investors are bullish while 48% of investors are bearish. The…
Anaplan (PLAN)-Another difficult quarter with sales results impacted significantly by the economy Anaplan reported the results of its fiscal Q1 on Monday before the opening. I suppose some investors have forgotten that there is still a pandemic upending the economy and that overall, the economy is still in the throes of a deep contraction. The…
Anaplan shares-are they expensive, or are investors still missing what the company offers? Anaplan is another portfolio holding. Currently the shares represent about 6% of our portfolio and have done well over the period we have owned them. We expect to continue to own the shares for the foreseeable future. While notionally, the shares aren’t…
Yesterday, 3 of the companies in our portfolio reported. Two of the earnings reports were gratifying-the third one, not so much. We expect earnings releases on one side of the other of the guided range-we think managing a portfolio is more about a longer-term batting average and less about short-term anxieties about quarterly misses-or for…
For the reasons we have previously cited, we wanted to trim the size of our holding in Alteryx from more than 14% of the high-growth portfolio to 11%. To do so, we sold 75 shares at Friday’s closing price of $142.07. That raised $10,655 and left us with a position of 255 shares. I want…
Splunk reported a strong quarter, but the results were overshadowed by cashflow guidance that has lead to a number of downgrades, and to a significant share price reaction. The shares fell by about 12% in the wake of the cashflow issue, and they are down by about 19% since their recent high. This recent share…
Summary Late Last week Splunk announced its fiscal Q1 results. The results, for the most part, were very strong and showed accelerating growth in software revenues as well as a strong margin performance. The company continues to dominate its Log Analysis space with multiple offerings in multiple use cases and strong acceptance as a security…