The 7investing Podcast

There are thousands of publicly-traded companies for investors to choose from on any given day. What's the best way to evaluate them -- and to separate the cream from the crop? 7investing CEO Simon Erickson recently interviewed Flyover Stocks' founder Todd Wenning. Todd has spent two decades in the investing industry -- representing the buy-side with Ensemble Capital, the sell-side with Morningstar, and the retail side with The Motley Fool. He's now launched his own Flyover Stocks newsletter to help investors find overlooked, quality companies. In the first part of the conversation, Simon asks Todd about his investing methodology. Todd describes that "Strong Buy" opportunities are often found at the collision of Moats, Management, and Price. A moat refers to a company's competitive advantage. Easy to comprehend but more challenging to quantify, moats represent an "unfair advantage that makes a business sustainable." Todd explains that there are different types of moats -- such as legacy or reinvestment moats -- which should be considered as management plans out their capital allocation strategy. The two then discussed management, which they framed as capital allocation decisions. Dividends are still a popular allocation strategy, as they show a discipline and commitment to returning cash directly to investors. Management teams can also pursue acquisitions or execute strategic buybacks with their company's profit stream. In the final part of the conversation, Simon and Todd discuss why Costco (Nasdaq: COST), Old Dominion Freight Line (Nasdaq: ODFL) and Worthington Industries (NYSE: WOR) might be intriguing opportunities for investors to add to their watch list. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this podcast include Costco, Old Dominion Freight Line, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Uber, and Worthington Industries. 7investing’s advisors and/or its guests may have positions in the companies that are mentioned. Don't miss out on future conversations like this! 7investing will be publishing upcoming interviews with the CEOs of PubMatic, Rocket Lab, and more. Join 7investing's free email list to get our podcasts and investing insights delivered directly to your Inbox.

In No Limit episode 24, Luke waxes macro on the Chinese economy while Krzysztof re-enacts the invasion of Agincourt. The pair also discuss Eos Energy's latest developments as well the virtues of price to sales ratios and other common investing metrics.

The music industry is innovating, and it's making billionaires out of those who grace the global stage. Larger-than-life personalities -- from Jay-Z and Kayne to Beyonce and T-Swift -- are not only selling out shows, but are now reaching their fans in entirely new ways. Digital streaming, generative AI, and NFTs are all helping to turn the music industry's amps up to "11." Behind the scenes is an extremely profitable and thriving supporting cast of businesses. Music labels, streaming platforms, and live events promoters are all generating billions of dollars for artists and are receiving a standing ovation from their investors. So how should investors best plug-in to the music industry? To answer that question, we've brought in an expert. 7investing CEO Simon Erickson recently spoke with David Schulhof, the founder and CEO of MUSQ, LLC. MUSQ is the world's first pure-play global music industry ETF, giving investors a way to align their portfolios with the best opportunities of the music industry. In the first part of their conversation, Simon asks David to describe his background and why he created the thematic ETF. David describes how the music industry is growing, and why he's structured it into streaming services, music labels, and live events. The two then discuss how artificial intelligence and generative AI is driving more of a need for labels and curators. With more than 120,000 new songs being uploaded every day due to generative AI and digitization tools, there's more of a need than ever for sorting and finding the highest-quality new music. Labels are becoming more important as ways to create playlists or to offer legal protections against piracy or copyright infringements. David then explains that streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and YouTube are surging in popularity, with tens or hundreds of millions of users. They make distribution seamless between artists and listeners, and modest price increases this year are falling extremely quickly to their bottom line. In the second part of the program, Simon and David discuss the continued demand for live events and why companies like Live Nation will continue to profit handsomely. New digital approaches using cryptocurrencies or NFTs could be opportunities for progressive artists or marketers to make the pie even larger with the world's most passionate music fans. [EMBED ANCHOR AUDIO HERE] Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this podcast include Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Live Nation, Sony, Spotify, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. 7investing’s advisors and/or its guests may have positions in the companies that are mentioned. Don't miss out on future conversations like this! 7investing will be publishing upcoming interviews with the CEOs of PubMatic, Rocket Lab, and more. Join 7investing's free email list to get our podcasts and investing insights delivered directly to your Inbox.

There's certainly no shortage of news and headlines about the American economy these days. This morning's announcement of 3.2% inflation in July is sending stocks higher across-the-boards. Investors are excited that the Fed's aggressive rate hikes from the past eighteen months may finally be showing signs of getting inflation back in-check. If the Fed were to see the progress it needs to see and take a more dovish stance toward the economy, it could lead to economic growth and stock market appreciation. But the United States is also just one country, and "investing" spans across the entire globe. How is the rest of the world handling their own fiscal and monetary policies? Are other countries similarly increasing rates in attempts to tame inflation? Are there specific regions we should be more closely watching, which might provide superior economic growth or investing opportunities?  To answer those questions, we've brought in an expert. 7investing CEO Simon Erickson recently spoke with Ayesha Tariq, who is the co-founder of MacroVisor. Based in Dubai, Ayesha has spent her professional career analyzing financial markets all across the globe. 

For those new to investing, the stock market might seem like a huge, complex, and intimidating place. What's the best way to get started? The Investing for Beginners podcast aims to simplify the language of money. Its mission is to better understand what's going on in the market, to help individual compound money over time. In today's podcast conversation, 7investing CEO Simon Erickson chats with IFB co-host Dave Ahern about the best ways to get started with investing. Dave shares his personal background and what led him to stocks, as well as several of the most important things he's learned along the journey. In the middle segment of the program, Dave describes three traps that newer investors (including his former self) tend to fall into -- as well as how to proactively avoid them. The two then describe why Visa (NYSE: V) is one of Dave's highest-conviction stock ideas and why Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) is on his radar. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this podcast include Intel, Mastercard, MercadoLibre, Novo Nordisk, PayPal, Visa, and Wells Fargo. 7investing's advisors and/or its guests may have positions in the companies that are mentioned. Don't miss out on future conversations! Join 7investing's free email list to get our podcasts and investing insights delivered directly to your Inbox.

Episode 23 of No Limit features Luke putting on his science superconductor nerd glasses and dreaming about a magnificent future, going over the fundamentals of why the LK-99 phenomenon has gripped the world’s imagination. But he also displays the qualities that high level investors need to cultivate: a skeptical framework and a measured approach to too-good-to-be-true claims. Krzysztof meanwhile bemoans the risks of investing in small-caps, updates the ongoing Eos saga, and pontificates further about why risk management and a stomach made of titanium are a requirement for these kinds of high volatility investments. In the context of vulnerable small caps and preventing massive losses due to cleverly calibrated short-attacks, we discuss whether stop-losses are a boon or bane in the investor toolkit. In the trivia game, Luke looks to shame Krzysztof with some technical patterns and candlestick trivia— can you tell how hard Luke has to work to keep his disdain for chart fortune tellers under his svelte exterior of cool?

Climate change has been a hot topic for several decades (and yes, pun intended). But are companies and their investors taking it as seriously as they should be? There's a possibility that corporations, investors, banks, and insurers haven't sufficiently been addressing the climate-related risks that lurk within their balance sheets and business models. That goes firstly for physical risks. There are climate-related wildfires, floods, or droughts that could cause significant damage to facilities or antiquated equipment. There's also market-based risks associated with transitions in technology. An example is staying on top of the transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. New vehicle fan belts and spark plugs aren't selling quite as well as they used to. And finally, there are potential litigation risks. There are financial penalties associated with failing to comply with regulations. All of these are risks that face companies every year. How should forward-thinking investors react to them? To answer that question, we've brought in an expert. 7investing CEO recently spoke with Steven Rothstein, who is the Managing Director for the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. Steve and his team are helping a variety of stakeholders make better investing decisions with the ultimate goal of enabling a net zero economy. In the first part of the conversation, Steve discusses the global regulatory framework and the disclosure rules for developed countries, and also explains how proactively addressing climate risks can protect many companies from the $165 billion of economic losses due to things like floods, fires, and tornadoes. 92% of the Fortune 500 are voluntarily disclosing the results of their climate-related initiatives. There are no mandatory disclosure laws in the United States, although it's being considered by the SEC. A climate-related "scorecard" could be beneficial for investors as well, which could help investors identify the most climate-progressive companies in the market who could be less-exposed to unexpected lurking landmines. In the final segment of the show, Steve describes how his company has just released its most recent Climate Risk Scorecard on ceres.org. Don't miss out on future conversations like this! 7investing will be publishing upcoming interviews with the CEOs of PubMatic, Rocket Lab, and more. Join 7investing's free email list to get our podcasts and investing insights delivered directly to your Inbox.

Hold onto your cannolis! It's another globe-trotting episode of No Limit with Krzysztof & Luke! In this episode, we check in on Krzysztof's adventures in Sicily, discuss the value of getting rich slowly, and some of the basic principles of financial education, including what steps you need to take before becoming an investor.

For risk-tolerant investors who love a good thrill, there are few industries more exciting than biotechnology. He Jiankui shocked the world in 2018 by announcing he'd genetically modified twins born in China. Two years later, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier shared the Nobel prize for developing CRISPR, and a globally-coordinated effort was embracing Moderna's innovative new mRNA approach to develop a COVID vaccine and make it universally available. Gene editing found its way into the clinic, enabling a new wave of checkpoint inhibitors to help the body proactively find and detect cancer. A more comprehensive understanding of the human genome - made possible by the cost of sequencing falling bellow $500 - has unlocked a new field of diagnostics to proactively screen patients. NVIDIA's recent investment in Recursion is the latest move to introduce AI into health care. Yet there are also several challenges that face this industry's extreme pace of innovation. Patent infringements are common, as the courtroom is continually used to determine who owns the most cutting-edge IP. Payments are still largely in the hands of insurers, who are still figuring out how to reimburse for proactive treatments. Patient privacy and regulations are polarizing topics that have kept several tech companies at bay. And several of the industry's most important players are undergoing leadership changes, which could result in consequences that impact both their customers and the system at-large. How should investors approach this roller-coaster that we call the biotech industry? Are there exciting new trends and scientific breakthroughs that demand our attention? Are there larger companies who capitalize on those trends by providing the picks and shovels to enable them? Are there smaller, 'off the radar' companies who are risky but also offer enormous potential upside? To help us answer those questions, we've brought in Manisha Samy, who has spent her career in health care and seen it from several different angles. 7investing CEO Simon Erickson begins by asking Manisha what she's most excited about in health care today. Manisha explains that AI is finding its way into new opportunities and that NVIDIA's recent $50 million investment in Recursion could be a good sign that AI is becoming more prevalent in drug development. Genomic sequencing leader Illumina has unlocked quite a bit of information about the human genome. This will help not only for designing new drugs, but could also unlock new breakthroughs in computing as well. The two then dive deeper into Illumina, whose short-read sequencing approach has reduced the cost of sequencing the human genome from $3 billion to less than $500 over the past two decades. Yet Illumina's spin-off and then attempted re-acquisition of its GRAIL subsidiary is facing scrutiny from customers, investors, and regulators. The FTC is demanding Illumina divest GRAIL due to antitrust concerns, the EU is slapping Illumina with fines for violating its process, and activist Carl Icahn has gotten a seat on the Board while Francis DeSouza has resigned as CEO. Is Illumina still a good company to invest in? Simon and Manisha then turn to Invitae, who is an adopter of Illumina's sequencing technology to provide diagnostics to screen for genomic variants or even cancers. After years of aggressively making acquisitions to support its top-line growth, Invitae is now undergoing a turnaround to fix several of the financial issues it's gotten itself into. Manisha discusses her thoughts on the company and it's bigger-picture vision and strategy. In the final segment, Manisha introduces three small-cap biotechnologies companies that she believes should be on the radar of interested investors: Nanostring Technologies, Ginkgo Bioworks and Caribou Biosciences. Don't miss out on future conversations like this! Join 7investing's free email list to get our podcasts and investing insights delivered directly to your Inbox!

Welcome to our 7investing Growth vs Income Summer Stock Challenge! We are on a quest to find the best current stock opportunity for investors. All month, we’re pairing popular “growth” and “income” stocks up in head-to-head matchups — to ultimately determine which stock will provide the greatest upcoming five-year return. In this “Income Style, Round 1, Matchup 3” bracket, our #4 ranked defense contractor Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is paired up against #5-ranked tower operator American Tower (NYSE: AMT). When looking over the next five years, which will prove to be the better investment?