Mitel has assembled an interesting menu of cloud telephony services for businesses, small to large.

Realty Income has a diversified portfolio by sectors within the single parcel commercial property market.  What are the risks of each sector, and how does management approach each?  

Realty Income operates in a commoditized industry, the ownership of standalone real estate parcels used by certain commercial retail enterprises.  In this podcast, we discuss how Realty Income structures its business to provide diversification and attempts to differentiate its offering.

The future of speech recognition and MEMS microphones

Knowles' management has devoted a large percentage of revenue into R&D that might address new developments. In Part 2 of this podcast on Knowles, we discuss how it has positioned itself to capture new sources of demand from the internet of things (IoT), and how it has addressed greenfield needs in hearables, e.g. small earbuds, which require distributed processing power. We also discuss how the pendulum is swinging back to bare die design and manufacturing, and why packagers are suffering.

Is speech recognition changing the MEMS microphone industry?

Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States.  As far as we can tell, every other country in the world advances a self-serving industrial policy, to the detriment of the United States, which embraces free trade.  In this final episode of Stocks-in-Depth’s review of Ian Fletcher’s 2010-2011 book, Free Trade Doesn’t Work, we start by presenting the author’s case that China, Japan, and Europe have emphasized industrial policy over free trade for years. ...

Institutional investment strategists follow economic and market data closely, and tend to weave together a narrative that explains the current trend.  Presently the US dollar is rising, like it has two times before in the last few decades.  In this podcast, we sample the perspective of Brown Brothers Harriman currency strategist Marc Chandler, whom we believe mistakenly thinks the rising dollar is proof that the U.S. trade deficit is benign.  In Part 3 of our series, Free Trade Doesn’t Work,”...

The historical record shows that countries that rise to economic greatness did so through a strong industrial policy, which incorporates tariffs and non-trade barriers.  Moreover, at their apex these powers tended to adopt free trade, some vainly thinking that in doing so they might change the world for the better, but nevertheless be able to kick away the ladder upon which others might follow to industrial might.  In Part 2 of this special edition of Stocks-in-Depth, we review what economist...

History is replete with unanticipated events: Pearl Harbor, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the 2008 credit meltdown, and now the improbable ascendance of Donald Trump to America’s highest office.  Yet there are many who previse change, but whose ideas are so unorthodox that they are never see the light of day until after the fact.  With this in mind, Stocks-in-Depth introduces a little known economist, Ian Fletcher, and his 2010/2011 book, Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It...

When we first examined the home standby generator market, we were struck by what seems to be a unanimity of opinion that tremendous secular growth would be driven by homeowners increasingly discovering the benefits of having an automated system to supply electric power in times of outages.  It’s argued that penetration is low, and that loss of power is not only inconvenient, but uneconomic, for food spoils and families must seek alternative shelter.  Yet as we looked into the matter, we saw...

Generac astutely commandeered the clear leadership position in home standby generators during the late 1990s and after the start of the millennium.  In so doing, it developed an expertise in engines optimized for burning natural gas or propane, such as its 2-cylinder OVHI 1,000 cc displacement engine that can deliver 16 kW of standby power, as well as by making transfer switches and other related technologies.  Moreover, it has structured its supply chain to optimize a position as an “asset...

For at least a decade, Generac's strategy has been to leverage off of its clear leadership in the home standby generator market to establish market share in portable generators, power washers, and commercial & industrial standby electricity generation markets. How successful has it been? How profitable can these adjacencies be? What other companies have done well? What has happened to the poorer performers in the marketplace?

Generac has seen its sales and earnings decline for over two years.  Four powerful storms swept across the U.S. in the 2011-2012 period, but ever since then electric power outages have been well below normal.  In Part 1 of our discussion of Generac, we'll cover what businesses this company runs, and what management's strategy is.   We will have to stop and resume the discussion in Part 2, but you will start to see how our granular approach of deconsolidating and estimating sales and earnings...

Central Garden & Pet contains numerous distinct businesses within its two namesake segments.  In part 3 of this podcast, we spend nearly two hours breaking down the pieces within these segments, and provide granularity so you can appreciate how various rivals compete in each niche.  Along the way, we explode the myth that dog food market, in which Central doesn't have much of a presence, has unappetizing growth and profitability.  "Big dog food" is also the principal actor in the treat...

In Part 2 of the Central Garden & Pet podcast, we continue to review the operations of the company beginning with portions of the Pet segment, mainly Aquatics, Flea & Tick products, calming products, equine, and the professional and special ingredients businesses.  We discuss the Garden segment, especially controls.  Given some of the pieces of the Garden segment seem to have good profit margins, we explore why the other portions of this segment have thin margins, and what actions...

In Part 1 of this three-part podcast, we start by presenting some background on Central Garden & Pet, and we discuss management changes over the last few years that have affected the company’s strategy.  We draw comparisons in our analysis to other consumer product firms, and discuss management’s ability to achieve acceptable levels of ROI in its two segments.  After this high-level discussion, we take a detailed tour of many of the businesses in its Pet segment, which depending upon the...

In this podcast, we examine what has caused growth in outerwear, sportswear, and footwear to accelerate since the 2008 credit crisis for key players such as Columbia, North Face, and other brands.  These leading firms have  harnessed the opportunity to use outlet stores and e-commerce to redefine their relationship with their customers and retailers, and in so doing have increased their penetration of these essential apparel markets.  Coming out of the 2008 meltdown, we recount the...

In Part 1 of our podcast of analysis of Power Integrations' stock, we laid out how we saw it fitting in to stock market trends we've seen in 2016, which have been changing from the pattern followed since the credit crisis of 2008-2009.  This company has suffered from stagnant sales and compressed margins.  However, our methodology is to consider long-term trends and corporate milestones, and we think Power Integrations is beginning another such cycle, even if such episodes have in the past...

The last major milestone for Power Integrations was its release of LinkSwitch2 in late 2008 to early 2009.  LinkSwitch, by our estimate, is the company's leading product family.  However, management stopped reporting sales by product about five years ago.  In this stock research podcast, GARP discusses a wide range of subjects pertaining to this niche semiconductor enterprise.  We aim to demystify the engineering breakthroughs it has achieved, including its latest, InnoSwitch, which is...

How much organic growth is really occurring at RealPage?  Is the apartment rental market going to become swamped by capacity?  How profitable is RealPage really, considering that it discusses its results with institutional holders in non-GAAP terms?  What does it look like using more conventional yardsticks?  Is there a large market waiting for it and Yardi to penetrate?  In this podcast of this lesser known stock market listing, GARP Research attempts to unpack these questions through...

Vocera Communications is dearly valued relative to its present level of sales and red ink has been flowing for several years.  However, 2015 has been a transformational year.  Sales have started to grow and the losses are attenuating.  A few years back it was largely dependent upon communications "badges" largely worn by nurses in hospitals, and it was challenged by new text messaging technologies.  With a fair amount of development spending and some well-conceived, financially reasonable...

Shares of Taser International (TASR) retreated dramatically ever since the riots in Ferguson, MO dominated the headlines in early 2015, about one year ago.  Is the decline because of fundamental factors such as Motorola's decision to enter the body cam and evidence management business, or is it more from the passage of an unpleasant psychological milestone in race relations?  Are international cities rethinking their need for conductive electric weapons or body cameras in the wake of the...

In part 1 of our discussion of Taser International stock, we explore how there are two segments.  Its conductive electronic weapons (CEWs) enjoy extraordinarily high profitability with mid-30's operating margins fully burdened, and competition barely exists.  The other segment is Axon, which contains its emerging evidence.com cloud-based evidence management system, which reduces paperwork for police officers, helps manage the multi-million dollar risks of large civil settlements, and...