Independent research on the U.S. markets, Baptista Research

Baptista Research

Independent research on the U.S. markets

Baptista Research is an independent financial research house focused on the U.S. markets. We provide equity research as well as credit research reports on the top-listed U.S. companies with most of our focus on technology, consumer goods and services, automobiles, industrials, oil and gas, pharma, and healthcare. Our research has served more than 3000 institutional investors including mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, family offices, and various buy-side firms. We operate a research subscription service where institutions, as well as retail investors, can have priority access to all our research. We also have a wide distribution of our research reports across some of the top global financial platforms. Apart from equity research and credit research, we also provide advisory services with respect to mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity/ venture capital fundraising, valuation reports, and investment management services for corporates.
Baptista Research is owned and managed by Ishan Majumdar, an ex-Venture Capitalist/ Investment Banker, a Chartered Accountant, and a Masters’ degree holder in Management from HEC Paris. Ishan has nearly a decade of experience in Mergers and Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), Venture Capital Investing, Corporate Strategy, and Valuation in front-office roles at the likes of BNP Paribas CIB, Credit Agricole CIB, Groupe Danone, and TIW Private Equity. He has worked on and closed multiple acquisition deals, leveraged buyouts, and start-up investment transactions.

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>Carnival Corporation's latest earnings suggest an optimistic outlook for the company as it reports setting records in all four quarters of 2023, with revenues, booking levels, and customer deposits seeing an all-time high.</li><li>Encouragingly, both North American and European brand occupancy levels exceeded 101% in Q4, and per diems for these brands showed significant increases over 2019.</li><li>The company’s performance enabled it to surpass high cost inflation over the past four years, delivering per unit Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) that outpaced 2019 levels when excluding fuel and currency fluctuations.</li></ul>

Carnival Corporation's latest earnings suggest an optimistic outlook for the company as it reports setting records in all four quarters of 2023, with revenues, booking levels, and customer deposits seeing an all-time high.Encouragingly, both North American and European brand occupancy levels exceeded 101% in Q4, and per diems for these brands showed significant increases over 2019.The company’s performance enabled it to surpass high cost inflation over the past four years, delivering per unit Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) that outpaced 2019 levels when excluding fuel and currency fluctuations.

Carnival Corporation: Are its deleveraging and refinancing efforts successful? - Key Drivers

US-EU Index Rebalances / Quantitative Researcher, Ortex

Dimitris Ioannidis

US-EU Index Rebalances / Quantitative Researcher

Global Financial Data and Analytics Platform

Ortex

ORTEX is a global financial data and analytics platform providing real-time securities lending and short interest data, index rebalance data, holdings and insider transactions, trading signals, corporate actions and news,  stock machine learning and factor scores and other analytics. The majority of the data are downloadable and accessible through APIs.

Event-Driven

<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/sparebank-1-sr-bank-asa" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:22255:1" rel="noopener">SpareBank 1 Sr-Bank (SRBANK NO)</a> is the number one addition candidate following the merger with SpareBank 1 Sørøst-Norge which increased the security's float shares.</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/schibsted-asa" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:22250:1" rel="noopener">Schibsted ASA (SCHB NO)</a> - Class B - is estimated to have surpassed Class A in liquidity which deems it eligible for selection with a high conviction.  </li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/carnival-plc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:21869:1" rel="noopener">Carnival PLC (CCL LN)</a> is one of the top three addition candidates after experiencing a ~50% price rally over the last three months. </li>
</ul>



SpareBank 1 Sr-Bank (SRBANK NO) is the number one addition candidate following the merger with SpareBank 1 Sørøst-Norge which increased the security's float shares.

Schibsted ASA (SCHB NO) - Class B - is estimated to have surpassed Class A in liquidity which deems it eligible for selection with a high conviction.  

Carnival PLC (CCL LN) is one of the top three addition candidates after experiencing a ~50% price rally over the last three months. 


STOXX 600 EU December 2024 Forecast: A Schibsted Gamble, a SpareBank Surge, and a Carnival Party

Technical Analyst, Vermilion Research

Joe Jasper

Technical Analyst

Technical and Quantitative Research

Vermilion Research

Vermilion’s objective is to deliver timely, actionable, and unique technical research to professional investors through the application of our various technical indicators.

Our research strategists seek to highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various technical and quantitative indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. Our unique research methodology, centered on relative strength, enables our strategists to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing the universe of actively traded stocks into discrete sectors, then into industry groups. We then apply our technical and quantitative tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sector or group, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. We provide a historical perspective that often reveals, through our long-term charts, how price patterns often repeat themselves over time.

Technical Analysis

S&P Small Cap 600 Index / Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>Our outlook remains bullish and the significant end-of-year rally that we have been expecting since mid-October is in full swing; continue to ride the trend higher.</li>
<li>Our election day Compass report (11/5/24) was titled "Buy the Pullback," and last week's Compass (11/19/24) was similarly titled "Buy the Pullback Again" </li>
<li>We continue to expect significant upside into year-end and the early part of 2025, with small- and mid-caps leading the way, and for index support at 20-day MAs.</li>
</ul>


Our outlook remains bullish and the significant end-of-year rally that we have been expecting since mid-October is in full swing; continue to ride the trend higher.
Our election day Compass report (11/5/24) was titled "Buy the Pullback," and last week's Compass (11/19/24) was similarly titled "Buy the Pullback Again" 
We continue to expect significant upside into year-end and the early part of 2025, with small- and mid-caps leading the way, and for index support at 20-day MAs.


Continue to Ride the Trend Higher; Upgrading Discretionary to Overweight; Overweight Mid/Small-Caps

<ul>
<li>Our outlook remains bullish following the S&amp;P 500's multi-month base breakout above 5670, alongside constructive market dynamics which have significantly improved over the past week.</li>
<li>Last week's 11/5/24 report titled "Buy the Pullback" discussed how we were buyers, expecting a strong end-of-year rally to start that day or the following day (day after the election)</li>
<li>The strong rally officially started on election day, and all that is left to do is ride the trend higher into year-end and the early part of 2025</li>
</ul>


Our outlook remains bullish following the S&amp;P 500's multi-month base breakout above 5670, alongside constructive market dynamics which have significantly improved over the past week.
Last week's 11/5/24 report titled "Buy the Pullback" discussed how we were buyers, expecting a strong end-of-year rally to start that day or the following day (day after the election)
The strong rally officially started on election day, and all that is left to do is ride the trend higher into year-end and the early part of 2025


Ride the Trend Higher; Significant End-Of-Year Rally Underway; Four Sector Upgrades, One Downgrade

<ul>
<li>Outlook remains bullish following the SPX multi-month base breakout above 5670-5783, alongside constructive market dynamics. The market is quite clearly telling us that the path of least resistance is higher.</li>
<li>We would treat any pre-election pullback (if it comes) as a buying opportunity, and we expect to see support on the SPX at 5760 and 5655-5670.</li>
<li>We believe there will be a strong end-of-year rally that will extend into the early part of 2025 due to bullish end-of-year seasonal tendencies during up years (SPX +22.1% YTD).</li>
</ul>


Outlook remains bullish following the SPX multi-month base breakout above 5670-5783, alongside constructive market dynamics. The market is quite clearly telling us that the path of least resistance is higher.
We would treat any pre-election pullback (if it comes) as a buying opportunity, and we expect to see support on the SPX at 5760 and 5655-5670.
We believe there will be a strong end-of-year rally that will extend into the early part of 2025 due to bullish end-of-year seasonal tendencies during up years (SPX +22.1% YTD).


Downgrading Health Care $XLV to Underweight; Bullish Outlook Intact $SPX; Bitcoin Breaking Out

United States

Carnival Corporation owns and operates cruise ships offering cruises to all major vacation destinations including North America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Southern  Europe, South America and Asia/Pacific. The Company, through a subsidiary also owns and operates hotels and lodges.  Dually-listed company with CCL LN.

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Carnival Corp (CCL US)

Carnival Corporation: Are its deleveraging and refinancing efforts successful? - Key Drivers

Carnival Corporation's latest earnings suggest an optimistic outlook for the company as it reports setting records in all four quarters of 2023,...

Baptista Research

STOXX 600 EU December 2024 Forecast: A Schibsted Gamble, a SpareBank Surge, and a Carnival Party

The top addition candidates are SpareBank 1 Sr-Bank post-merger, Schibsted ASA Class B after surpassing Class A in liquidity, and Carnival PLC...

Dimitris Ioannidis

Continue to Ride the Trend Higher; Upgrading Discretionary to Overweight; Overweight Mid/Small-Caps

Continue to Ride the Trend Higher; Upgrading Discretionary to Overweight $XLY $RSPD $XRT; Overweight Mid- & Small-Caps $IWM $IJR $IJH. Latest "Buy...

Vermilion Research

Ride the Trend Higher; Significant End-Of-Year Rally Underway; Four Sector Upgrades, One Downgrade

Ride the Trend Higher; Significant End-of-Year Rally Underway $SPX $QQQ $IWM; Four Sector Upgrades ($XLF to overweight, $XLY $XLI and $IYT to...

Vermilion Research

Downgrading Health Care $XLV to Underweight; Bullish Outlook Intact $SPX; Bitcoin Breaking Out

Downgrading Health Care $XLV to Underweight; Bullish Outlook Intact $SPX $QQQ $NDX $IWM; Bitcoin and Silver Breaking Out $IBIT $SLV. Pullbacks =...

Vermilion Research

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Carnival Corporation: Are its deleveraging and refinancing efforts successful? - Key Drivers

Carnival Corporation's latest earnings suggest an optimistic outlook for the company as it reports setting records in all four quarters of 2023,...

Baptista Research

STOXX 600 EU December 2024 Forecast: A Schibsted Gamble, a SpareBank Surge, and a Carnival Party

​The top addition candidates are SpareBank 1 Sr-Bank post-merger, Schibsted ASA Class B after surpassing Class A in liquidity, and Carnival PLC...

Dimitris Ioannidis

Continue to Ride the Trend Higher; Upgrading Discretionary to Overweight; Overweight Mid/Small-Caps

Continue to Ride the Trend Higher; Upgrading Discretionary to Overweight $XLY $RSPD $XRT; Overweight Mid- & Small-Caps $IWM $IJR $IJH. Latest "Buy...

Vermilion Research

Ride the Trend Higher; Significant End-Of-Year Rally Underway; Four Sector Upgrades, One Downgrade

Ride the Trend Higher; Significant End-of-Year Rally Underway $SPX $QQQ $IWM; Four Sector Upgrades ($XLF to overweight, $XLY $XLI and $IYT to...

Vermilion Research

Downgrading Health Care $XLV to Underweight; Bullish Outlook Intact $SPX; Bitcoin Breaking Out

Downgrading Health Care $XLV to Underweight; Bullish Outlook Intact $SPX $QQQ $NDX $IWM; Bitcoin and Silver Breaking Out $IBIT $SLV. Pullbacks =...

Vermilion Research

The top addition candidates are SpareBank 1 Sr-Bank post-merger, Schibsted ASA Class B after surpassing Class A in liquidity, and Carnival PLC...