Jack Dorsey and Square

Hey guys! This episode we got Alex Morris. Alex is the man behind the substack: The Science of Hitting. This is second time we have Alex as a guest and on this episode we talk all things Retail. We covered a lot of topics ranging from why he likes retail businesses, to Target’s latest quarter reports, the bull case for Five Below, retail’s KPI and unit economics, and the difference between the Dollar Tree and Dollar General.

• [0:00] Who is Alex Morris?
• [5:50] Changing your Investment Philosophy.
• [7:50] Finding Great Founders
• [9:50] Jack Dorsey
• [13:00] Position Size
• [21:00] Managing a Portfolio.
• [26:00] Why Alex likes Retail Stocks
• [31:00] The KPI of Retail Businesses?
• [33:00] Dollar Tree vs Dollar General
• [43:00] Unit Economics
• [46:00] Target: The Canary on the Coal Mine?
• [1:01:00] Retail’s Tough Comps
• [1:03:00] Five Below
• [1:35:00] More from Alex and Closing Questions

If you like what you heard, check out Alex on Twitter and his Substack. 

Finally, a big thanks to the following sponsors for making the podcast a reality.

Mitimco

This episode is brought to you by MITIMCo, the investment office of MIT. Each year, MITIMCo invests in a handful of new emerging managers who it believes can earn exceptional long-term returns in support of MIT's mission. To help the emerging manager community more broadly, they created emergingmanagers.org, a website for emerging manager stockpickers.

For those looking to start a stock-picking fund or just looking to learn about how others have done it, I highly recommend the site. You'll find essays and interviews by successful emerging managers, service providers used by MIT's own managers, essays MITIMCo has written for emerging managers and more!

Quartr

Quartr is revolutionizing the way investors interact with IR departments, listen to conference calls, and engage in investment research. The best way to think of Quartr is like Spotify for investor conference calls. Quartr is 100% free and includes markets from 12+ countries (with plans to expand in the future!). Investors can easily request new companies, and Quartr is quick to add them. You can learn more about Quartr by visiting their site, Quartr.se

If you're interested in changing the way you research companies, download the app today and give it a try on Apple and Android.

Tegus

Tegus has the world’s largest collection of instantly available interviews on all the public and private companies you care about. Tegus actually makes primary research fun and effortless, too. Instead of weeks and months, you can learn a new industry or company in hours, and all from those that know it best.

I spend nearly all my time reading Tegus calls on existing holdings and new ideas. And I know you will too. So if you’re interested, head on over to tegus.co/valuehive for a free trial to see for yourself.

TIKR

TIKR is THE BEST resource for all stock market data, I use TIKR every day in my process, and I know you will too. Make sure to check them out at TIKR.com/hive.