Meta Platforms – Knives out

Meta’s corporate governance is becoming an issue. The activists are starting to come out of the woodwork voicing their dissatisfaction with Meta, but the reality is that unless they convince Mr Zuckerberg, the only vote they have is with their feet. Altimeter Capital, which owns $325m in Meta has written an open letter (see here) to Meta bemoaning the awful...

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Snap Q3 2022 – Revaluation

Snap is heading towards value territory. Snap reported Q3 2022 results that missed expectations slightly but the resulting crash in the share price is a clear indication that the valuation of the company is still above where it needs to be (although it is getting close to something more reasonable). Q3 2022 revenues / Adj-EPS were $1.13bn / $0.08 below...

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Gone sand skiing – Back October 24th.

RFM has taken a few days off and gone sand skiing. Normal service will resume on October 24th. 

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China vs. USA – Self censorship

Semi-equipment makers remove China The US and European semiconductor capital equipment industries are self-censoring their business with China in a way that is much more draconian than I expected and if it becomes the norm, will do even more damage to the Chinese semiconductor industry than anyone has anticipated. US companies such as Applied Materials, KLA corp and LAM Research...

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Smart Home – A Matter of detail.

Matter only goes so far. The new Matter standard has the potential to end the fragmentation and incompatibility of the smart home but even with all of the big digital ecosystems supporting it, there are limitations and scope for substantial complexity to damage the user experience. Matter is an application layer protocol which was created to address the issue of...

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Meta – Misplaced message

Missed the connection. Meta headlined its Connect 2022 event with its new pro-headset but its real message was completely lost meaning that what Meta is really doing in the Metaverse will remain a mystery to the market for at least another year. Most commentators looked at what Meta has today and used this to predict where the company is going,...

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Huawei – Window dressing pt. II

No way back. The repercussions of the latest US restrictions (see here) are likely to go both far and wide through the Chinese technology industry slowing its development and putting Huawei even more at a disadvantage than it already was. Huawei’s fate in cellular networks and equipment was pretty much sealed a couple of years ago when the USA implemented...

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Twitter – X marks the spot?

X is the only place to go. Much has been made of Mr Musk’s plans to create a super app called ‘X’ with Twitter as its starting point, but the reality of numbers demonstrates that this is probably the only way that any money will be made from acquiring Twitter for $44bn. Twitter is what RFM refers to as a...

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Semiconductors – Supercycle pt. VIII

Samsung and AMD join the chorus. Weak results from Samsung and a profit warning from AMD are more signs that demand is weakening which in the face of all-time highs in capital expenditure could tip the sector into a sharp downturn. Samsung reported preliminary Q3 2022 results that missed expectations almost certainly as a result of weakness in semiconductors with...

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USA vs China – Turn of the screw pt. II

The USA goes beyond semis in its war on Chinese technology. The USA is about to ramp up the pressure still further on China’s semiconductor industry which marks a departure from just targeting semiconductors to targeting the other technologies where China, until now, has been doing very well. The US Department of Commerce is expected to publish new guidelines which...

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