President

Thomas Coughlin

Coughlin Associates

Equity Bottom-Up

<p>Breaking up WDC into a separate HDD and flash memory businesses could create two viable storage companies, that over time will provide value to very different, but potentially symbiotic, uses.  The HDD business will become enterprise and especially data center focused, while an NAND flash business will seek to gain market share as a way to moderate and better survive the NAND flash boom/bust cycles.</p>

Breaking up WDC into a separate HDD and flash memory businesses could create two viable storage companies, that over time will provide value to very different, but potentially symbiotic, uses.  The HDD business will become enterprise and especially data center focused, while an NAND flash business will seek to gain market share as a way to moderate and better survive the NAND flash boom/bust cycles.

Potential WDC Breakup, Positive Implications

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research Analyst, Obex Capital Research

Aaron Gabin

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research Analyst

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research

Obex Capital Research

“Obex” is Latin for Barriers to Entry. Obex Capital Management’s investment philosophy is driven by an intense focus on which business model’s Barriers to Entry are able to withstand the ever increasing competitive disruption in the TMT and Consumer Sectors.

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<p>As we head into earnings next week, we note attractive setups for Snap and Microsoft from data that came out this week, along with a very bullish presentation at Crowdstrike's user conference.</p>
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<p>Obex’s fundamental research process is focused on secular change in the TMT and Consumer sectors. We seek to differentiate between fundamental business analysis and security analysis. Before deciding if a security’s pricing and positioning merit a long or short position, we analyze the four pillars of business fundamentals (Secular Factors, TAM, Competitive Advantage, Business Model) in order to determine if this is a “good” or “not so good” opportunity.</p>
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As we head into earnings next week, we note attractive setups for Snap and Microsoft from data that came out this week, along with a very bullish presentation at Crowdstrike's user conference.




Obex’s fundamental research process is focused on secular change in the TMT and Consumer sectors. We seek to differentiate between fundamental business analysis and security analysis. Before deciding if a security’s pricing and positioning merit a long or short position, we analyze the four pillars of business fundamentals (Secular Factors, TAM, Competitive Advantage, Business Model) in order to determine if this is a “good” or “not so good” opportunity.




TMT Weekly:  3 Things that Stood Out The Week of 10/16/​​​​2020

Seagate Technology Holdings PL / Equity Bottom-Up

<p>Continued development of HDDs, particularly increasing storage capacity on HDD disks is the key to retaining a competitive advantage for HDDs over SSDs for mass storage in data centers.  Seagate’s CORTX open source object storage software, combined with their scalable Lyve Drive Racks and advanced HDDs could provide upside for Seagate selling into the high margin enterprise and data center markets.</p>

Continued development of HDDs, particularly increasing storage capacity on HDD disks is the key to retaining a competitive advantage for HDDs over SSDs for mass storage in data centers.  Seagate’s CORTX open source object storage software, combined with their scalable Lyve Drive Racks and advanced HDDs could provide upside for Seagate selling into the high margin enterprise and data center markets.

Seagate’s HAMR HDDs, CORTX and Lyve Drive Rack: Positive Enablers

Semiconductors, Memory and SSDs Specialist, Objective Analysis

Jim Handy

Semiconductors, Memory and SSDs Specialist

Objective Analysis

Objective Analysis offers third-party independent market research and data for the semiconductor industry and investors in the semiconductor industry.

Semiconductors, Memory and SSDs

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) / Equity Bottom-Up

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)

<p>The US Department of Commerce has added SMIC to its Entity List with the intent of limiting the company's access to US technology.  This Smartkarma Insight explores what that might mean to the company, to  China's national semiconductor efforts, and to SMIC's US-based tool suppliers.</p>

The US Department of Commerce has added SMIC to its Entity List with the intent of limiting the company's access to US technology.  This Smartkarma Insight explores what that might mean to the company, to  China's national semiconductor efforts, and to SMIC's US-based tool suppliers.

<p style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/western-digital-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1094:1" rel="noopener">Western Digital (WDC US)</a>  18 TB HDDs appear to be shipping before Seagate's.  This could reverse Seagate's current nearline advantage and combined with the company's joint NAND flash fab and SSD business provide long term upside for the next round of data center capital investment.</p>

Western Digital (WDC US)  18 TB HDDs appear to be shipping before Seagate's.  This could reverse Seagate's current nearline advantage and combined with the company's joint NAND flash fab and SSD business provide long term upside for the next round of data center capital investment.

WDC Delivering Higher Capacity Nearline HDDs, Positive Trend

United States

Seagate Technology Holdings Public Limited Company offers computer hardware products. The Company designs, manufactures, and markets hard disk drives for enterprise applications, client compute applications, client non-compute applications, personal data backup systems, portable external storage systems and digital media systems.

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Seagate Technology Holdings PL (STX US)

Potential WDC Breakup, Positive Implications

WDC may be considering breaking up its HDD and NAND flash business. Find out how these separate businesses might fare on their own.

Thomas Coughlin

TMT Weekly: 3 Things that Stood Out The Week of 10/16/2020

Datapoints supportive of upside to earnings for Microsoft and Snapchat this past week, plus an ever expanding TAM justifies Crowdstrike's valuation.

Aaron Gabin

Seagate’s HAMR HDDs, CORTX and Lyve Drive Rack: Positive Enablers

Continued development of HDDs, particularly increasing storage capacity on HDD disks is the key to retaining a competitive advantage for HDDs over...

Thomas Coughlin

US Government Puts the Squeeze on SMIC

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Jim Handy

WDC Delivering Higher Capacity Nearline HDDs, Positive Trend

WDC 18 TB HDD portfolio combined with the companies joint NAND flash fab and SSD business provide long term upside with the next round of...

Thomas Coughlin

Price Gauge

52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

P/E

Dividend (Yield)

Potential WDC Breakup, Positive Implications

WDC may be considering breaking up its HDD and NAND flash business. Find out how these separate businesses might fare on their own.

Thomas Coughlin

TMT Weekly: 3 Things that Stood Out The Week of 10/16/​​​​2020

Datapoints supportive of upside to earnings for Microsoft and Snapchat this past week, plus an ever expanding TAM justifies Crowdstrike's valuation.

Aaron Gabin

Seagate’s HAMR HDDs, CORTX and Lyve Drive Rack: Positive Enablers

Continued development of HDDs, particularly increasing storage capacity on HDD disks is the key to retaining a competitive advantage for HDDs over...

Thomas Coughlin

US Government Puts the Squeeze on SMIC

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Jim Handy

WDC Delivering Higher Capacity Nearline HDDs, Positive Trend

WDC 18 TB HDD portfolio combined with the companies joint NAND flash fab and SSD business provide long term upside with the next round of...

Thomas Coughlin

TMT Weekly: 3 Things that Stood Out The Week of 10/16/2020