Jul

24

What sub-sectors are traditionally used to benefit from the elections campaigns, or will the campaign be fought on twitter and other social media?

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

Tim Melvin is the expert on this. Any company that depends on government largesse will benefit as the idea that has world in its grip is that we are victims and the purpose of government is to take from the productive and give to the poor and foster smallness in humans, and strive for inequality so that none stand out as counterweights to the perks and emoluments and mistresses of the governs. 

Tim Melvin writes: 

Oddly enough today's column addressed this big government trade:

While macro stuff is not my strong point I feel like I can identify some segments of the world we live in that are more or less have to happen situations. Obviously small banks fit well into my long term view of the world. Smaller banks are going to have an increasingly difficult time keeping with regulatory and technology costs. The will find that it makes more sense to sell to a larger competitor rather than struggle to remain independent. This simple trend should makes us all a lot of money over the next decade.

The next powerful trend is one that I hate to see but the fact is that without a social and political revolution the Federal government will continue to play a larger role in the lives of its citizens. They are developing programs for medical care, social programs, energy policy and a host to other instructions and instructions that are going to require huge expenditures. A whole bunch of that money will find its way into the hands of consulting companies like Willdan Group (WLDN), Provident Service Group (PRSC), CACI International, FTI Consulting (FCN) and Ameresco (AMRC) that provide specialized consulting services to the various government agencies that will develop and oversee these programs.

And don't forget the print news and radio companies that will see a ton of advertising dollars from local elections–ahc, salm, SBSA–the hispanic vote will be HUGE and much $$$ will be spent there…TV station owners like GTN, MEG, SBGI–ssp owns both local tv stations and newspapers….

And many thanks. I was just sitting here wondering what in the fresh H*** to write about for tomorrow. Problem solved. I will post full column here when done if chair would like.

Ed Stewart writes: 

I think the same thing Tim talks about in banking is going to happen with brokerage firms, though a bit more stealthily. The second tier firms that are primarily marketing firms are going to give up on the technology side, much of the regulatory compliance side, etc, and become something more like introducing brokers. When this occurs most of them, or a great many of them, will consolidate under IBKR's global platform and then focus on sales and service. Apparently scottrade is the first, they have outsourced their options trading platform to IBKR - and the commission will be the exact same (supposedly) that IBKR's clients receive. They do this because ibkr will treat each brokerage relationship as 1 client, give them the volume discount, and then the other firm keeps the spread between the volume discount and what their individual clients are actually doing. Its a neat business model.

It will be invisible from a client perspective as the front-end will be customized or rebranded. One interesting small cap play on the hispanic market and possibly cycle is hemisphere TV, run by an experienced TV executive. I've looked into it just a bit, perhaps if i do more I will write a brief thing on it for the idea list.

IBKR is also starting to capture more fund business as smaller funds are kicked off the big platforms.

anonymous writes: 

I took a quick look at HMTV. It's an interesting company. But it seems to have a focus on niche markets within the hispanic community. I don't know how much appeal that may have to political campaign advisors. That's not to say it may not make for a great investment. My father invested in Perkin-Elmer in the 1960s because it launched a product that he thought would be great in the classroom. It flopped. Didn't matter, though. The company flourished because of its position as the leading supplier of electronic manufacturing equipment—a booming industry of the 1960s.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search