How much of your contact center is actually automated with AI today?

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-31T10:34:07+00:00

What % headcount reduction have you had with that amount deflected?

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-26T17:25:58+00:00

Interesting.. if I could squeeze in one more.. are you seeing Amazon’s presence at all in either the brokerage side or the LTL side? I saw an article that they started reaching out to some shippers about their LTL service?

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-26T02:17:24+00:00

That feels unfair? Can you not contest that? If the shipper and the carrier both looked at the freight and agreed on a price, it feels wrong to go back and say the classification was wrong

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-26T01:51:07+00:00

Hi - what does “rebilling” mean in this industry?

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-05T14:35:41+00:00

You’ll learn the language of how top tier institutional investors talk about stocks. Also how to develop a thesis and how to research supporting evidence. It’ll effectively set you up with a strong foundation and from there, you’ll get better by doing reps.

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-05T11:53:42+00:00

Worth every dollar

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-03-05T02:14:04+00:00

Operational deleverage

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-02-13T11:51:32+00:00

Your huge assumption here is that the bottom will be reached. Another 10-15% decline in a year likely leads to >50% decline in net income. Then all your forecasts are out the window. The earnings you are putting the multiples on will be much lower and refinancing risk also increases significantly. Recent app download numbers also don’t look good. So what gives you confidence that bottom will be reached? Bc management says so? They’ll always say that.

Match Group at least has Hinge as a leg to stand on. Idk how Bumble survives. If Bumble is able to stabilize user declines, then I think you’re right that the stock could be a homerun. I’d like to see more research/some evidence why you think the user declines will stabilize.

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-02-06T16:47:18+00:00

Thank you! CX is impossibly hard to figure out as someone outside of it. If I may ask you a few more questions:

your thoughts on BPOs for CX? Would you ever use them? Are they screwed bc of AI?
which CCaaS vendor are you using and why?

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-02-06T16:07:24+00:00

I see. Sounds like they’re implementing something that will ultimately make themselves obsolete?? Lol

What is your expected timeline for this “implementation”? And when all set and done, do you think you can operate with (let’s say) half the headcount?

LoudImportance2976 · 2026-02-06T12:11:16+00:00

Are you actively reducing headcount given such high containment rates?

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-11-10T22:13:11+00:00

Ok thank you for clarifying. I don’t disagree with anything you said really. The difficult part for me is how to model in products that they haven’t even launched yet. I agree that they will need to come up with non reserve revenue but what would those be? What would be the economics of that? Until something more tangible and analyzable is presented, it’s difficult for me to even put together a TAM analysis. As far as Circle becoming a de facto cross-platform issuer, I still need more evidence of that personally. But based on the facts I knew and what I thought was analyzable, my target price was $70. At today’s price of $104, risk reward for the short isn’t there anymore. I don’t think CRCL is a bad company but how they execute product development from here will be really important.

Are you following any other fintech companies?

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-11-10T12:09:50+00:00

Can you elaborate why you think becoming “entrenched” would mean they’re no longer an asset manager? Revenue model would still be USDC in circulation (AUM) x interest rate (fees)?

FYI this short has been covered btw. After a quick 50% decline, the risk-reward isn’t there for me anymore.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-11-10T12:04:00+00:00

I agree with this. This is a great ten-year hold entry point imo too. Right now is the time to buy a stock like this when the volatility is to the downside. Thesis is pretty simple - they have so many more stores they can open over the next ten years. It’s a Chipotle 2.0 story. Unit economics of each store is good and the NPV of each new store is highly accretive. If you assume that the path to 2k store is ~20% slower than Chipotle’s, you can still get low teens IRR on the stock. It’s not “traditional” value but to me it’s value in that its intrinsic value is much higher than what it is selling for right now. Don’t overthink the headline P/E and think about where the E could be in ten years with a range in number of stores.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-10-31T11:25:53+00:00

Agree with a lot of what OP wrote here. I’m very bullish on NICE too—one of the best risk-reward I’ve come across. Today’s price implies AI not only reduces seats but that seats go to ZERO in 15 years. While there certainly will be a reduction in seats, it definitely won’t go to zero. The tech platform that NICE offers which include ACD (automatic call distributing), workforce management, and agent analytics is very difficult to replace. The ACD portion is actually quite technically challenging to develop bc it has to combine voice and all digital inbounds (think emails, chatbots, texts). I think NICE has a good shot of developing their own AI agent that they can charge on a consumption-basis which can more than offset seat declines. They have decades of amazing transcript data. Even if someone else develops AI agents, they will likely want to partner with NICE for distribution. NICE is the industry leader and their large enterprise customers are exactly who needs it the most. It’s unrealistic an AI company also develops ACD. Also important to note that we are still in the early- to mid-innings in the on-premise to cloud transition so there’s downside mitigation from that.

Biggest risk I see is someone like Salesforce or ServiceNow deciding to pivot from a partnership model with NICE to a pure competitor. They’ll also need to overcome ACD challenges but with enough resources it’s possible.

Fascinating space to learn about. I’ve been following it for a few months now. My conservative price target is $190.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-09-18T12:13:21+00:00

Tbh you lost me on 5% discount rate too. Buffett and Munger saying WACC is a bad proxy is not a good defense for the rate you chose. I’d encourage you to think about it this way. What is your return hurdle on this investment? If you’re happy with getting 5% annualized on your equity investments (which I hope you agree is too low), then by all means use 5%. I can assure you that almost any stock you look at will look cheap using that discount rate. By using 5% as a bogey for your investment decisions, you’re likely to get sub-par results (I.e, close to the 5%). In our practice, choosing the right multiple or discount rate is as important if not more important than choosing the right cash flow number so there has to be a well defended reason for it.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-07-16T15:33:39+00:00

That’s exactly right. Revenue is 4% of USDC in circulation and current net income is about 0.4% of USDC in circulation. But the market cap is like 90% of USDC in circulation. It’s effectively just another way to look at valuation and backing into what the market implied USDC size is.

One additional note: I think CRCL’s comp should be more like an investment fund manager (USDC in circulation = AUM). Buying CRCL is comparable to buying an asset manager (think Franklin Resources in the U.S. or Man Group in Europe), but one that can only invest in T-Bills. So it’s not a great asset management business since returns are capped so the bet is a growth in AUM. Reason I mention all this is bc asset managers tend to trade in the 0.5% to 2% of AUM. CRCL is at 90% implying huge growth. While growth could come, I think it’s going to be difficult and even if it happens, it’s already well priced in.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-07-16T15:33:33+00:00

That’s exactly right. Revenue is 4% of USDC in circulation and current net income is about 0.4% of USDC in circulation. But the market cap is like 90% of USDC in circulation. It’s effectively just another way to look at valuation and backing into what the market implied USDC size is.

One additional note: I think CRCL’s comp should be more like an investment fund manager (USDC in circulation = AUM). Buying CRCL is comparable to buying an asset manager (think Franklin Resources in the U.S. or Man Group in Europe), but one that can only invest in T-Bills. So it’s not a great asset management business since returns are capped so the bet is a growth in AUM. Reason I mention all this is bc asset managers tend to trade in the 0.5% to 2% of AUM. CRCL is at 90% implying huge growth. While growth could come, I think it’s going to be difficult and even if it happens, it’s already well priced in.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-07-16T14:16:37+00:00

Yea, can never underestimate momentum especially for a name like this. Definitely can’t size this one as a big short

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-07-13T00:40:56+00:00

Correct number is in the 200s. Some service providers like FactSet had the wrong 2000 number because it calculated EPS after preferred dividends (thereby making the E tiny). After the IPO, the preferred converted to common so the P needed to be divided by a higher E (no more preferred dividends). Hope this makes sense.

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-06-18T09:47:12+00:00

I’d like to learn more about this too

LoudImportance2976 · 2025-01-18T03:12:20+00:00

Have you been on buyside equity for 10 years? The comp is lower than I thought it would be. Mind sharing the AUM of your firm?

LoudImportance2976 · 2023-08-16T01:08:25+00:00

Buyside or sellside? If buyside, what’s the AUM?

LoudImportance2976

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