13F Filings, Walmart, & Interesting Analyst Upgrades (Week 33)

ULTA NVDA UNH ABNB BABA SBUX

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I’m going to start releasing a short article every Friday as well which will give you a key recap of important market news throughout the week. I’ll rarely ever focus on macro events because I have little knowledge on this. The news will center around high profile stock news, big earnings, interesting analyst upgrades etc and I’ll try to always make it less than a 5 minute read.

The reason I’ve introduced a short Monday screen and a Friday market recap is just to add a bit more structure to my newsletter. Of course, I’m going to continue to provide you with deep dives and earnings reports on a weekly basis as well but I like the idea of implementing some shorter article releases as well.

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📰13F Filings

It was 13F filings this week. For those that don’t know what 13F filings are, they’re just quarterly check-ins of the portfolios of some of the biggest investors in the world like Buffett, Michael Burry, and Bill Ackman.

They can be a nice source of validation or new ideas. Here’s a look at the most high profile stock buys from various 13F filings this week:

Nvidia

Phillippe Laffont of Coatue Management piled into NVDA in Q2 as they increased their stake by tenfold.

Credit to Benzinga

They also added to positions in other semiconductor stocks such as Qualcomm (QCOM), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), and Lam Research (LRCX).

Outside of the semiconductor space, Laffont picked up shares in UnitedHealth (UNH). I’m a bit annoyed by this one as I held shares in UNH post the cyber attack in March 2024. I secured a fairly quick profit ~12% but this shouldn’t have been a sell. My thinking at the time was just to free up more capital for buys of stocks like PLTR which have done well.

Other Buys

• ULTA: Buffett opened a new position in a quality undervalued company called Ulta Beauty. I’ve spoke occasionally about ULTA on X but have never initiated a position.

• BABA: Billionaires Michael Burry and David Tepper now have BABA has their largest position in their portfolio. BABA is a stock I own too (it’s also my next deep dive for next week post earnings yesterday).

• SBUX: Starbucks has been in the news a lot this week after the CEO replacement news came out which increased the value of the company by $20B. Activist investors Elliott Management initiated a big stake in the company in July.

• ABNB: Chuck Akre bought $141 million of AirBnB during Q2.

Generated on Koyfin

Here’s a chart showing how the stocks have reacted over the last few days post 13F filings (amongst other news events too). ABNB lost 15% on Tuesday post worries on consumer spending habits…despite nights booked in Q2 increasing 19% YoY…

👉ABNB now trades near it’s lowest EV/Sales multiples in 3 years.

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🎯Walmart CRUSHED

Walmart (WMT) posted earnings yesterday, and they crushed it. It’s not necessarily an exciting stock to own, but it’s been a quiet compounder basically since 2010.

The stock rose on a big beat of expectations and also a very strong retail report which also beat expectations. I find this period quite funny because:

• UBER - “The U.S. consumer is amazing.”

• DKNG - “The U.S. consumer is amazing.”

• SBUX - “The U.S. consumer is struggling.”

• ABNB - “The U.S. consumer is struggling.”

Makes sense ⁉

Admittedly, WMT produced some incredible earnings but I can’t fathom buying WMT anywhere near the current valuation, especially when WMT management said growth in 2H may slow and prudence is warranted in providing guidance due to the mixed economic data out there. Further, planned expenses tend to be much more concentrated in Q3 and Q4 for WMT, so YoY comparatives tend to historically look stronger in 1H compared to 2H.

Well done to management but too pricey.

Generated on Koyfin

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📈Analyst Upgrades

There weren’t too many higher profile analyst upgrades this week, but the lower profile stocks with upgrades may provide you with big opportunities.

Here’s 5 analyst upgrades that I picked out this week:

• Oppenheimer initiated a $4 target for Vaxart (current price $0.79).

• HSBC upgraded Davide Campari-Milano to a buy.

• JP Morgan upgraded Sphere Entertainment (Las Vegas Sphere) to a buy with a target of $57 (upside of 23%).

• Barclays upgraded Illumina post strategic business moves from management.

• Piper Sandler increased Microchip Technology target to $100.

Sphere Entertainment

SPHR is a really interesting company and I think some investors are starting to realize this. Here’s a very brief investment thesis:

• SPHR has managed to create two distinct business segments, one which provides consistent cash flow (MSG), and the other (the Sphere venue in Las Vegas) which has huge potential.

• Revenue streams are from live events and content creation (allowing creators/artists to hire out the venue) at the Sphere, whilst MSG has subscription fees, D2C streaming, and advertising.

• There’s international expansion opportunities for SPHR to build another Sphere in London or the Middle East, though this has yet to be approved.

• As content creation becomes more and more popular, Sphere is collaborating with the biggest creators in the world (artists, actors etc) to open up the venue to produce the most creative and thrilling products.

• Vegas will continue to be the global hub of entertainment as more and more sports and entertainment floods there.

  

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📜Earnings Next Week

High profile earnings next week are from:

• Intuit (INTU)

• Lowe’s (LOW)

• Palo Alto Networks (PANW)

• Snowflake (SNOW)

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That’s it for the day

I hope you loved this article. As I develop on here, I’m sure there will be some changes to my structure and style, so please do leave some feedback for me.

Please subscribe to my newsletter where I provide investors with all the tools to outperform the market, and retire well before you’re 65. You can also follow me on X.

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