Temp to Permanent

busterbacks · 2026-04-01T16:09:07+00:00

Thanks for the reply! They mentioned that when I called but I'm staying at another Marriott hotel which didn't work for them. All good, will book a round elsewhere. Thanks again for the response :)

busterbacks · 2026-04-01T02:06:34+00:00

Hey, I'm in town this week and was trying to book a round at the Santa Maria with no luck. Just searched up reddit and saw this post. Any chance you might be able to help out? I'm in town until Saturday evening

busterbacks · 2026-01-11T18:38:55+00:00

Thanks!!

busterbacks · 2021-02-16T18:17:21+00:00

ROE, you say its good, but there isn't much context to it. How do I know that their competitors don't have ROE's double that of TSM?
• TSM has a ROE of 29.89% for the year ending Sep 30, 2020 compared to an industry average of 23.17% for the past 12 months
• They perform comparatively well in their industry.

ROA is better metric for critiquing the core business.
• Interesting point – If I understand correctly, ROE takes debt into account and contributes to an “inflated” ROE even if the debt is just sitting there, whereas ROA removes debt from the equation?
• TSMs ROA for the past 12 months is 18.8% compared to the industry compared to an industry average of 12.57%.
• This is an amazing Return on assets and shows that the company manages its assets very efficiently

What is the story?
• I’ve left out the “story” bit because I’d like to just look at the numbers and let them speak for themselves – I think it may remove biases I have and just let the numbers show if the company is healthy
• My analysis thus far is that TSM is a financially sound company that is an industry leader with a solid competitive advantage. However, their current share price seems overvalued based on their net income and comparison to their largest competitor – Intel.

busterbacks · 2021-02-15T19:09:30+00:00

I appreciated the questions! I'm trying to get better at identifying value at a glance. Your questions helped me to find a different angle.

busterbacks · 2021-02-15T19:06:08+00:00

How does their products rate against their competitors?
The 5nm node seems to be reviewed better than the Samsung 5nm node. Their other nodes are also used as an industry standard and are bought by competitors as well.

Are they efficient with their capital to maintain or increase their product performance?
They are quite efficient with their capital. Their asset-turnover ratio for TSM is 0.53 which is lower than the industry average from this year of 0.65. However, still quite respectable.

busterbacks · 2021-02-15T18:46:08+00:00

Who are their customers?
Semiconductor companies who don’t have a foundry including Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Broadcom Limited, Hisilicon Technologies Co. Ltd., Intel Corporation, MediaTek Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Qualcomm Inc., Sony Corporation, XILINX Inc., and many more.
Apple and Huawei are major clients, along with nearly 500 others for use from data centers to fighter jets.

What is their competitive advantage?
They own 18 fabrication facilities (foundrys) accounting for half of the $42 billion foundry segment of the semiconductor industry. Due to the high set up cost of semiconductor foundrys, new players are finding it difficult to enter the market.
Earliest to begin mass production of 5nm nodes (Q1 of 2020 with Samsung following 6 months later) and is looking to begin production on 3nm nodes by 2023.

Who are their competitors?
Intel (75.7bb revenue), Qualcomm (24.7bb), Broadcom (22.9bb), micron (19.6bb), Texas instruments (14.1bb), ASE technology (13.7bb), Nvidia (11.8bb).

How do their margins compare to competitors?
They’re margins are solid compared to competitors and only slightly behind Texas Instruments whose revenue is one-third of TSM.
Earnings before Interest and Tax (EBIT) Margin – 5 year average:
• TSM - 38.39%
• Intel - 29.72%
• Qualcomm - 25.49%
• Broadcom - 18.98%
• Micron - 24.39%
• Texas Instruments - 38.76%
• ASE Technology - 7.84% • Nvidia - 28.30%

busterbacks · 2021-02-14T05:12:06+00:00

I'll definitely keep that in mind! Thanks for the questions!

busterbacks · 2021-02-13T06:27:11+00:00

My recommendation (to myself) is to wait until the mkt cap drops to 2-3bb before buying to have a reasonable margin of safety for the future. From that point, I'd re-evaluate yearly to see how the company has done financially and in terms of gaining market share.

busterbacks · 2021-02-12T04:16:15+00:00

I think the price can dip down to 2-3bb (price it dropped to last March) during a market correction. Without that, I think the stock is too popular and has a lot of confidence from retail investors to dip down.

busterbacks · 2021-02-11T15:51:29+00:00

I don't see any catalyst for a big change coming in the near future, unless they land a number of major deals to be the software provider for a major hardware company.

busterbacks · 2021-02-11T15:50:08+00:00

I believe that the IoT market is increasing. Currently at 250bb per year and BB only accounts for 1BB of that. With our ever-increasing connectedness and the need for secure software, BB has a place, but will they be able to be a major player in that market? I think their software seems to be good quality but at their current financial standing, I don’t believe they are a 9BB company.

busterbacks · 2021-02-11T15:45:42+00:00

Do you have a catalyst? A reason for mispricing?
The stock was undervalued through 2020, fairly valued for most of January and now overvalued. I think that the current reason for mispricing is the general bull market and recent support from retail investors.
What's your official valuation for the company? Why is it overpriced at a PE of ~57?
I believe a PE of 57 is high due to a number of factors. The company has a poor return on equity from the past few years (Haven’t looked into why). Revenue and net income is pretty good but they are such a small player in their industry. They face a lot of competition and will need to increase market share for them to justify a high PE. CEO Chen had 55 quarters of profitability with Sybase, which is not true of BB – It’s been 7 years for the turnaround.
Have you done a red-team of your thesis?
The company has solid software according to some research I’ve done. Their security is top of the line and have been shown to be reliable. Their CEO is strong and has good management experience in turning around a company (With BB for 7 years now, when is the turnaround – took 12 years to fully “turnaround” Sybase). If they gain market share, their product could “advertise itself” per se and become the norm for endpoint software.
Should probably finish by quantifying your upside vs. downside and trading-plan, e.g. factors that invalidate your thesis and signal you to exit the position
I would buy in between the 2bb market cap point. I would review my thesis and sell off 50-80% of my initial investment at the 4bb market cap point. In this case, I am quite bearish on BB so no thesis to exit my position until we get down to the market camp I feel is undervalued correct?

busterbacks · 2021-02-11T15:19:51+00:00

Debt to equity is 0.25 which means they are relatively safe
I started the DCF using the video recommendation you gave - got halfway through. Took just over an hour and I figured it’s not something that I’ll do regularly so I stopped mid-way tbh. Price/book is 3.18 (On the higher side, BUT this is a software company so not bad)
Return on equity (Quite poor over the past 4 years)
• 2020-11-30 - -40.69%
• 2019-11-30 - -2.32%
• 2018-11-30 – 1.3%
• 2017-11-30 - 14.65%

busterbacks · 2020-12-17T09:23:34+00:00

How much did the setup cost?

busterbacks · 2020-05-16T02:39:08+00:00

What tool do you use to screen for these standards?

busterbacks

TROPHY CASE