Brief TMT & Internet: Spotify: Playbook for Online Platforms to Turn Profitable – Implications for Meituan Dianping and more

In this briefing:

1. Spotify: Playbook for Online Platforms to Turn Profitable – Implications for Meituan Dianping
2. U.S. Equity Strategy: Nearing Short-Term Overbought Extremes
3. A Trading Strategy for EcoproBM Post IPO

1. Spotify: Playbook for Online Platforms to Turn Profitable – Implications for Meituan Dianping

• Our analysis of how Spotify Technology Sa (SPOT US) turned profitable in 4Q18 reveals three key ingredients: critical mass in sales, GM progression, and core business diversification.
• With sales reaching critical mass, this would allow fixed costs to be spread out in such a way that opex/unit is lower than GP/unit.
• Progression in GM and core business diversification strategy are worth monitoring.
• Implication: Meituan Dianping’s (3690 HK) core business is ahead of iQIYI Inc (IQ US) in terms of profitability inflection point timeline.

2. U.S. Equity Strategy: Nearing Short-Term Overbought Extremes

Positive news surrounding trade and dovish Fed rhetoric has continued to flow, resulting in a reversal from December’s oversold extremes to our current, overbought extremes according to the S&P 500’s percentage of stocks above their 50-day moving average (see chart below). We continue to believe the market is going through a bottoming process, and we prefer to be on the cautious side at current levels considering how far and how quickly the market has risen. 

In today’s report we highlight attractive stocks within Materials and Technology: large- and small-cap gold, silver, platinum, and optical equipment companies.

3. A Trading Strategy for EcoproBM Post IPO

• In this report, we provide a trading strategy for Ecopro BM Co Ltd (247540 KS) IPO, which is expected to start trading on March 5th. The IPO price has been determined at 48,000 won, which is 19% higher than the mid-point of the original IPO price range of 37,500 won to 42,900 won. The institutional investors’ demand for the Ecopro BM IPO was extremely strong at 988 to 1. 
• In our previous report Ecopro BM IPO: Valuation Analysis, we proposed the base case to high end of the company’s value to be between 56,000 won and 67,800 won. Given the enormous institutional demand for this IPO, it appears that our base case valuation (56,000 won), which is 17% higher than the IPO price, may be too conservative. 
• A more likely scenario now is that the stock reaches about 65,000 won to 70,000 won in the first few hours of trading on the first day, overshooting its intrinsic value and sells off a bit for a few days/weeks, enters a consolidation phase and then resumes its higher share price again.