OFFICIAL STOCK MARKET AND ECONOMY THREAD VOL. A NEW CHAPTER

[iheartboost]

That’s why it’s important to research things and do your due diligence on thy own .

Agreed.

 

[southernhospita]

Falling for FOMO on these SPY trades
I need to get that in check
Or all of what I worked for will count for nothing

 

[deleted user 7639]

Spoiler: PT1 $FUSE -- MoneyLion | Jonah Lupton write up

$FUSE -- MoneyLion

Introduction to MoneyLion — please watch this video [click here]
Company website: MoneyLion.com
SPAC website: FusionAcq.com
Stock price: $10.90
Market cap: $2.95 billion
Enterprise value: $2.45 billion
Offices: New York City, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Kuala Lumpur

Founded: 2013
Founders: Pratyush Tiwari, Diwakar Choubey, Adam Green, Chee Mun Foong
CEO: Diwakar Choubey [LinkedIn]
VC funding: $269.5 million [click here]

MoneyLion going public via SPAC [click here]
MoneyLion announcement on The Block [click here]
MoneyLion announcement on Reuters [click here]
MoneyLion announcement on Pymnts.com [click here]
MoneyLion announcement on Seeking Alpha [click here]
MoneyLion announcement on The FinTech Times [click here]

2019 revenues: $40 million
2020 revenues: $76 million (est)
2021 revenues: $144 million (est)
2022 revenues: $258 million (est)
2023 revenues: $424 million (est)

CEO of MoneyLion and EVP from Mastercard discussing partnerships [watch here]
Presentation from the CEO in 2019 [watch here]
Interview with the CEO [listen here]

$FUSE - MONEYLION

OVERVIEW:
MoneyLion is a mobile banking platform that offers a variety of financial services including banking, credit builder loans, cash advances, paycheck deposit, automated ETF investing services, credit cards, cash back savings, financial, credit monitoring, financial advice, education and much more.

MoneyLion is trying to build the one-stop-shop for financial services, similar to what companies like Square ($SQ) and SoFi ($IPOE) are doing but MoneyLion is much smaller and growing faster so I believe the upside could be greater.

MoneyLion is realizes there are still financial barriers that many Americans face when it comes to building a better financial future for themselves. MoneyLion wants to empower everyone with the products and services they need to take control of their money and reach their long term financial goals.

The founders of MoneyLion believe that millions of Americans have been ignored — or even taken advantage of — by traditional banks and they want to rewire the system to create an even playing field and a sustainable path forward for everyone.

By leveraging artificial intelligence, superior analytics, and machine learning, MoneyLion can gain a 360-degree view of its customers’ personal finances and deliver uniquely personalized products and services from banking to lending to investing.

MoneyLion has more than 6 million users and over the past few years has received numerous awards of recognition for their innovation in the financial services industry.

SPAC SPONSOR:

I don’t always spend time in these writeups talking about the sponsors of the SPAC but I think it’s important in this case. When you’re dealing with financial services I believe it’s important that companies like MoneyLion are coming public via a SPAC which is run by a very strong group of industry veterans who can provide guidance and expertise along the way since they also have some skin in the game.

The team from Fusion Acquisition is solid and brings decades of experience from different parts of the investment industry including asset management and wealth management including Jim Ross who spent 20+ years at State Street Global building their massive trillion-dollar ETF business [click here].

I’m also happy to see the SPAC deal included a $250 million PIPE (private investment in public equity) from Blackrock and Apollo Management.

With regards to deal terms and transaction value you can see below that MoneyLion was valued at $2.4 billion (not including cash) which is a very fair valuation given the growth forecasts, ARPU numbers and desire for investors like me to own a piece of these small cap FinTech companies.

I’m excited to see what the MoneyLion management team can do with $500+ million of cash on their balance sheet. We’ll talk more about this later.

SEC Filings from Fusion Acquisition [click here]

BUSINESS MODEL:

Anyone that follows the FinTech space closely will appreciate the business model that MoneyLion has created. This is not a company that just wants to handle your personal banking or help you build your credit, they want to do everything for you. The real value for companies like MoneyLion is brining in the customer and then having 5-10 complimentary products and services to sell them. Not only does this increase the ARPU (average revenue per user) but it also enables the company to spend more on customer acquisition because the LTV (lifetime value) is so much higher. The most successful FinTech companies of the last decade have used this playbook and now MoneyLion is following in their footsteps.

MoneyLion has a true appreciation for the lifetime value of a customer and therefore wants to strengthen that relationship over time but adding new products and services to the relationship which also keeps that business very “sticky” as they say.

As consumers grow older their financial needs change and MoneyLion wants to be there to support them along the way. This is why it’s important for FinTech companies to have a broad range of services that appeal to millions of potential customers while at the same time looking personalized so that customer doesn’t feel like just another number. This is where AI and ML can help but also having responsive customer service teams, educational webinars and tons of features in the mobile app like being able to cancel your lost cards with the push of a button. It’s all about empowering customers to take control of their finances.

As you can see from the two pie charts below, MoneyLion is making a concerted effort to get away from fees (which people don’t like) and become more focused on generating revenues through digital payments and providing financial advice (which people do like).

Customers want to feel like they are getting value from their financial/banking partner and MoneyLion does a great job of sending this message through their marketing efforts. Just look at this fee chart below — I think you’d be hard-pressed to find another bank (especially a big one) that is this friendly when it comes to fees. MoneyLion is clearly not trying to take advantage of their customers but instead give them every opportunity to create a strong financial foundation for themselves.

I’m not sure enough people know that U.S. banks generate more than $35 billion per year from overdraft fees. This number is utterly disgusting because these fees are coming from the people that can’t afford to pay them. They are already living paycheck to paycheck and these fees might be the difference between having enough money for food or paying the rent but not both. I think all of us should applaud the financial institutions that are not taking advantage of lower income customers with these outrageous fees but instead trying to help them, support them and educate them. MoneyLion is doing all of this.

Earlier in the writeup I talked about ARPU which is a really important number for FinTech companies like MoneyLion that are trying to get customers into multiple products. As you can see below the revenue generated from customers with 3+ MoneyLion products versus just 1 MoneyLion product is $100 yet there’s no additional customer acquisition cost so the majority of their additional revenue is going right to the bottom line (EBITDA).

MoneyLion has already discussed new product launches in 2021 which includes credit cards and crypto which has me excited because that’s when you see these ARPU numbers increasing dramatically which then improves the companies operating margins and gets them to profitability faster than originally planned. The goal for MoneyLion over the next year is getting 60% of users to 2+ products and 30% to 3+ products. I’d love to see the numbers for 4 and 5 products.

Latest write from Jonah Lupton.
Had to chop it up into two parts/ post. Didn't know we had character limits lol

PS looks like I killed the links if anyone needs the email forward DM and I'll send over

 

[deleted user 7639]

Spoiler: PT2 $FUSE -- MoneyLion | Jonah Lupton write up

FINANCIAL PROFILES:

When you listen to the CEO of MoneyLion speak you can tell he cares about his customers and their financial health. This is much more than just giving them a better savings rate or a way to check their credit score because nowadays our financial health needs to include everything from our assets (home, cash, investments, etc) to our liabilities (loans, mortgages, etc) and it feels like MoneyLion is doing their best to tie it all together and give users a snapshot of their financial health — sort of like a comprehensive financial dashboard with all the important metrics in one place.

If you go to the MoneyLion website and create an account they will walk you through a process to help you figure out what kind of financial profile fits you best. Just like those personality tests, I don’t think anyone fits perfectly into one box, there’s always some overlap, but this process is there to help you figure out where your mindset might be when it comes to your financial health, your willingness to take risks or play it safe, your goals, your challenges and where there’s room for improvement.

MoneyLion has one of the best FinTech apps I have come across. It’s extremely easy to use and very intuitive which makes the user experience very enjoyable. It’s easy to understand why MoneyLion customers are so loyal. Just like some people like tracking their daily fitness activity or REM sleep, MoneyLion helps you track your financial well-being.

BANKING:

I’m not going to spend much time on this since I think most of understand how mobile banking works.

I just think it’s very refreshing to see a company like MoneyLion be so transparent with their fee structure and do everything possible to keep fees as close to $0 as possible and provide lots of other ancillary services to make life easier and less stressful.

Roar Money is coming soon which will allow customers to access their paychecks two days early. The payday loan industry is downright evil and companies like MoneyLion want to crush them by giving customers access to their money assuming they are doing direct deposit. I will forever support any company that wants to destroy those ****ty payday loan companies that prey on the less fortunate.

CASH BACK SAVINGS:

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want cash back… enough said.

MoneyLion already has partnerships with hundreds of retailers and ecommerce companies to provide cash back incentives.

CASH ADVANCE:

This is the service I was talking about above where you can access your incoming paycheck deposits at 0% APR. Now those emergency financial situations don’t have to stress you out as much — many of us have found ourselves in this position and it sucks.

CREDIT BUILDER:

Unfortunately millions of Americans have never been properly educated on how to manage their credit and have fallen into a position of despair where their low credit rating has become a liability. MoneyLion has a robust set of tools that enables all of their customers to finally take control of this situation and if needed take out mini credit builder loans in order to make payments and improve their credit rating.

I think this is a really cool concept and I which I had access to something like this earlier in my career when I was paying the price for my own credit mistakes in college. It’s too bad that our education system doesn’t teach stuff like this to young people before they get into trouble — thankfully MoneyLion is there to help them repair the damage.

I have downloaded the MoneyLion and played around with all of the features, they really do have a phenomenal lineup of products and features to help everyone monitor and repair their credit.

INVESTING:

Most of the people reading this newsletter love to know individual stocks, obviously I do as well. But as you know being an investor takes alot of time and effort which is not suitable for everyone. Sometimes the smarter path is using an auto-investment service or robo-advisor which helps you build the most appropriate allocation model to fit your investment objectives, risk tolerance and time horizon then uses ETFs to fill up the allocation model which provides you with exposure to the markets while being properly diversified.

I’m not surprised that MoneyLion has built a robust investment offering for their customers however I’d still expect this part of the business to get even stronger since the Fusion Acquisition team has a ton of experience in the capital markets, specifically with ETFs.

It makes a ton of sense for MoneyLion to keep improving their investment products because there are trillions of dollars in motion and younger people don’t care about having their money at Fidelity or Vanguard like the old days. They want something that feels more personalized and contemporary — MoneyLion checks these boxes.

Over the next couple months I’m planning to host some webinars to teach young people the basics when it comes to investing. Perhaps I should partner up with MoneyLion because it seems like they are trying to do the same thing. Just like our education system fails to teach young people about how to manage/monitor their credit rating, our education system also fails to teach young people about investing. This is why so many people around the world don’t start investing in stocks until they reach their 30s or 40s which is really unfortunate because the benefits of starting early and getting those compounding returns beginning in your 20s makes a huge difference 30-40 years later.

Even if MoneyLion can motivate their users to start investing $50 per month at an earlier age will benefit them greatly over the long run. I do think these ETF based asset allocation models are great for millions of investors that just want the “set it and forget it” approach which is totally fine with me, sometimes it’s better to keep it simple and stress-free.

EDUCATION:

As I’ve already alluded to, MoneyLion has a variety of educational offerings from financial experts to help their customers become more informed, more empowered and more confident in managing their personal finances and their investments. Investing can be very intimidating at first so it’s important that MoneyLion realizes this and tries to help their customers overcome these barriers. This type of educational “evergreen” content is also great for attracting new customers at a lower CAC.

UPCOMING PRODUCT LAUNCHES:

Here are some of the products we can expect to see shortly from MoneyLion. Given that I’m now a MoneyLion shareholder and looking for 5x returns over the next 5 years, these are the types of products that could help drive those returns.

Right now the whole BNPL (buy now, pay later) space is super hot with companies like Affirm going public and seeing their stock prices soar higher.

Obviously the credit card offering is another “sticky” product that MoneyLion can offer their customers

Personally I think the crypto platform is the most exciting of these three with enormous appeal to younger customers and therefore the potential to accelerate user growth. With Bitcoin hitting $50,000 this week I believe millions of individuals are looking for new ways to gain exposure to crypto and build a digital wallet. MoneyLion is going to provide this access with the ability to round-up purchases and earn rewards in crypto — there’s a company called Lolli that is doing this and they are crushing it. Don’t underestimate the power that crypto has to attracting new users, this is one of the reasons that Square ($SQ) has done so well over the past year.

GROWTH:

There are many catalysts for growth at MoneyLion but here are several that standout to me:

1) More spending on sales and marketing — now that MoneyLion is going public via the SPAC, they will have $500+ million of cash on the balance sheet that they can plow into customer acquisition through more aggressive sales and marketing campaigns, since we already know the ARPU of users with 3+ products, that is where the focus should be

2) New product development with big launches like the crypto platform and credit card offerings — I think MoneyLion is doing all the right things right now, I’m actually really impressed with everything they offer for such a young company in the early days of hypergrowth, it took Square much longer to scale up with all of these different product offerings.

3) More brand awareness from being a public company — I don’t think this aspect gets enough attention and is one of the reasons that company like MoneyLion decide to go public rather than raising more VC money, just like $STIC (aka Barkbox) went public and was an under the radar company, I think MoneyLion fits into that same category. I’ll be honest, up until a few weeks ago I had never even heard of MoneyLion but now that I have and I’ve pulled apart their platform, I think there’s tremendous value here for customers as well as shareholders.

From this chart below you can see the company has already experienced tremendous user growth over the past few years and based on their forward looking projections it doesn’t look like they expect that growth to slow down any time soon — neither do I.

I’m super bullish on MoneyLion as a financial wellness company and their ability to deliver high-quality products and services to their growing userbase.

Now they are armed with $500+ million of capital to deploy into key areas like customer acquisition and product development.

It’s quite remarkable that MoneyLion has been able to grow as fast as they have without spending much money on sales and marketing. If I had to guess, they probably have a great referral program for existing customers plus their educational content is a great way to gain trust and credibility from prospective customers.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY:

I won’t spend much time here because you’d have to be living under a rock to not realize the opportunity in financial services, lending, credit cards, investments, and digital wallets (including crypto) is enormous. MoneyLion doesn’t need to be the leader in any of these financial segments to deliver strong returns to shareholders. They just need to keep delivering value-added products and services to their growing userbase.

FINANCIALS:

There are lots of things I like about MoneyLion and the financials are no exception. As a small/mid cap growth investor I’m looking for companies primarily under $5 billion market cap with explosive growth potential — and MoneyLion has me very excited right now because of that potential.

If we consider the current enterprise value is around $2.45 billion and the company is expected to generate $144 million in revenues this year it’s currently trading at 17x EV/sales however if we look forward to 2022 it means the stock is currently trading at just 9.5x EV/sales which is really cheap for a company growing revenues at 70-80% and to be honest I would not be surprised if these financial projections turn out to be conservative thanks to that $500M on the balance sheet and all those exciting product launches in the pipeline.

Based on the companies financial projections, they are looking for a 5x increase in revenues from 2020 to 2023. If they come even close to hitting these numbers the stock is an easy 5-bagger over the next 4-5 years which is my investment goal for every stock I own.

I would love to see MoneyLion become profitable in 2022 but I’m willing to overlook it as long as revenue growth and user growth stays strong.

I believe contribution profit is just a fancy term for gross margins which appear to be forecasted at 65% for 2021 and then steadily increasing to 71% next year and 78% in 2023. This is when you see the power of the FinTech business model on full display because as they launch new products and grow the user base, most costs are fixed so the user/revenue growth leads to tremendous operating/net income margins over the long term.

CHARTS:
The charts for $FUSE are basically useless since it’s a SPAC that just announced a deal and is still trading very close to that $10 NAV price. To be honest I’m shocked this stock is not already trading at $15+ per share because it should be.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

I looked at 4 different sites that provide customer reviews, ratings and NPS numbers (net promoter score) and MoneyLion looked strong across the board.

I think think MoneyLion customers really appreciate their holistic approach to financial well being and not just trying to sell them another product or charge them another fee. MoneyLion has that small company feel where even the employees seem to take pride in trying to provide help and guidance to customers.

MANAGEMENT:

Very solid management team which you can see from the chart below which shows some of the first-class companies they have worked for including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citadel, Merrill Lynch, Accenture, Square, Citi and plenty of others. Clearly this team has the experience to take MoneyLion to $10+ billion and beyond. If you’re looking to get beyond a FinTech team you’re not going to find one much better than this.

Message from the CEO [click here]

CULTURE:
The sense I get from MoneyLion’s team is that they really do care about helping customers and providing the best financial products and services possible. MoneyLion has a much different sense of purpose than you get from Bank of America or TD Bank. I’m sure both of these companies employ some wonderful people but MoneyLion just seems to be mission over profits which I respect and in the end I think this approach is what wins customers over.

Job openings at MoneyLion [click here]

MoneyLion also provides some excellent perks and benefits to their employees which is why the company gets excellent ratings from current and former team members.

VALUATION:

FinTech is a hot space right now and for good reason because it’s what the global economy has transitioned into. The global FinTech industry is innovating at a wild pace and there’s a lot of capital/customers up for grabs.

Many of the people reading this newsletter might be an investor in some of the companies below (I still own $UPST), most of which have provided shareholders with tremendous returns over the past couple years and rightly so when you look at their growth rates however some of the valuations on these companies have gotten quite frothy which makes MoneyLion look even more compelling.

Some of the companies below are trading at 20-30x 2022 sales with 30-40% growth while MoneyLion is trading at 9-10x 2022 sales with 70-80% growth. I’m still a big fan of most FinTech companies but with MoneyLion I see very little downside and tons of upside.

CONCLUSION:

Hopefully you’ve gained some valuable insights into MoneyLion, their business model, their growth strategy, their financial wellness approach and of course why I’m so bullish on the company. Several months ago I made the decision to begin focusing on smaller companies for a variety of reasons. Personally I felt small caps were grossly undervalued compared to large caps. I also believed there were some very exciting, disruptive companies emerging from the small cap space including SPACs.

As I transitioned my portfolio to small caps I began selling off my larger stocks, including $SQ and $IPOE (SoFi). Even though I still love both of these companies and see enormous upside in them, my focus was small caps so they needed to go. Over the past month I have been searching for a FinTech company to replace $SQ and $IPOE that I could get excited about.

I looked at 8-10 companies and I thought every single one of them was overvalued given their growth prospects. Then I came across MoneyLion after the SPAC deal was announced and I got giddy because this company gave me exactly what I wanted to see including a strong product offering, strong management team, strong user/revenue growth and of course a fair valuation.

Add it all up and I’m trilled to have gotten into $FUSE over the past couple days under $11 per share. I have no idea why investors have gotten more excited about this deal but I honestly don’t care. Their oversight has created an opportunity for my newsletter subscribers to jump in before the big funds do. $FUSE is now a 4% position for me and my plan is to keep adding because I believe this is a $25+ stock by the end of 2021 and a $100 stock in 4-5 years.

I hope you enjoyed this writeup — please feel free to share it with your friends and family members.

Let me know if you have any questions — I have already reached out to the team at MoneyLion and I’m in the process of trying to schedule an exclusive interview with their CEO for the benefit of my paid subscribers.

As always, thank you for being a subscriber and I promise to do my best every week to bring you another growth stock at a fair valuation with huge upside potential.

 

[SplinterMatic319]

CCIV has waaaaay more hype than that QS run to $130, do not be afraid to dip your toes when it becomes official because it will run for days.

 

[ksteezy]

Up 600% on my CCIV calls, FEELSGOODMAN

 

[broncos19dm]

CURI family! We on fire!

 

[OprahsBabyDaddy6]

TSLA wut is u doin

 

[QU!K]

CCIV has waaaaay more hype than that QS run to $130, do not be afraid to dip your toes when it becomes official because it will run for days.

I read SPACs typically drop like 1/3 when they merge. Why don’t you think it’ll happen here?

A Sober Look at SPACs

Read our latest post from Michael Klausner (Stanford University) and Michael Ohlrogge (NYU).

corpgov.law.harvard.edu

 

[SplinterMatic319]

After merger, not all though......probably because warrant holders excercise and sell idk.....but if Lucid is truly Tesla rival then people will hold

 

[johnnyredstorm]

It’s a $12 billion market cap at $10. Let that marinate before you start chasing while the pros are selling.

 

[SplinterMatic319]

Lemme marinate on Tesla’s insane valuation too.

 

[johnnyredstorm]

Tesla is an energy storage, FSD, software, potential ride hailing company that happens to sell cars.
Lucid is a dope car with potentially a killer battery. Go look at Ford and GM and tell me being a car manufacturer is a wealth generating industry.

Taking a starter in KBNT. Need to still research it but something is brewing and I rather have a foot in the door while I research it than miss out potentially. The thematic here is wonderful as this could be a big player against ad fraud which is a $100 billion TAM by 2023.

I think this might be the CML Pro top pick. Thematic is digital advertising. Ophir posted stats on that thematic and the impact ad fraud has.

I only grabbed 50 shares. I’ve barely looked into this company and it had a big chart break out and it’s super small and thin. I’ll add if it makes sense. I haven’t finished reading their investor presentation but I wanted a position in case.

https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_c8eb0aab9acc1feacae670b3b6311828/kubient/db/857/7446/pdf/Kubient+Investor+Deck+-+January+2021.pdf

 

[essential1]

What I added today:

32 shares in BNGO at $14.20
32 shares in HAAC at $14.12

And purely speculative, low risk, probably no reward, and because I’m an idiot. Put $50 in MCOA. Just for a long long long shot that a favorable administration toward marijuana and CBD creates a boom for their business. The last management basically trashed the company, new CEO looking to restructure all of its debt. If I hold and it remains worthless, it’s $50, no big deal.

 

[igotthatstock]

Your daily reminder that TSLA is a $50 stock.

 

[johnnyredstorm]

Lucid is a cool company and I’d own it in the $30 range, but there’s no reason to touch it here.

 

[essential1]

Your daily reminder that TSLA is a $50 stock.

In the words of Stugotz.... Elon Musk - Fraud

 

[johnnyredstorm]

Got someone telling KBNT is bull**** on Twitter. Whatever. It’s got revenues of less than 5 mill so of course it’s **** on paper. But at the market cap, TAM, growth estimates, I’m taking a small position for a couple of weeks and seeing what happens. If it’s not the top pick on the 23rd, I’ll sell it if I don’t like the rest of the research I do. Currently going to read this

https://maxim.bluematrix.com/sellside/EmailDocViewer?encrypt=a501ac23-2bc0-4ce1-b4fd-16ed8aa7d787&mime=pdf

 

[Mokorider]

Took it back to the roots and followed all the Twitter accounts posted on the first page. Kudos to johnnyredstorm.
Time to get back into all of this. I've missed out on a bunch of crazy events.

I just want to thank the NT fam for so much knowledge and exposure throughout the years. Much love! lets eat!

 

[htg designs]

Cciv
Might have to go long on this

 

[deleted user 7639]

Wow @ Ark buying 1.5 million shares of $PLTR

 

[miniojw]

Ark and Berkshire Hathaway brought $ABBV

 

[CrownRoyalDaddy]

Wow @ Ark buying 1.5 million shares of $PLTR

They know wassup

$50 in 3 months

 

[ballinsam23]

They bought again? I saw they bought millions in January.

 

[ballinsam23]

I'm gonna make some reckless moves. Not enough movement, not big enough of a position, more growth in other positions that I want to enter/add on to.

Selling my entire position in TSLA (got in at 460, measly 8 shares)

Sold entire position in DKNG. Finally made my profits, will get back in as it always dips.

Sold entire position of IPOE.

Trimmed NVTA.