Accounting Insights: Alibaba, JD, and the $330bn Footnote

This is the second piece in our Investor Education Series. This post goes into details on how to piece together financial disclosures to build novel company insights. We go through JD’s disclosures back to 2015 to better understand Alibaba’s ability to monetize their platform. It is our most accounting intensive piece yet, but we believe …

Copart Deep Dive

Junkyards, wrecked cars, a duopoly, 30% operating margins, and two self-made billionaires: this is the story of Copart. From a single salvage yard in California to a global facilitator of over 3mn vehicles sales, Copart is not just the world's largest salvage vehicle auction marketplace, but also a critical logistics provider and large land holding company.  …

RH Deep Dive

From a money-losing retail mall concept that sold gimmicky mayonnaise spreaders, garden gnomes, and nostalgic snack foods to elaborate six-floor luxury furniture showrooms with some of the highest grossing restaurants nationally, RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) is one of the greatest business turnaround stories of all time.  While we are often taught to be weary of …

The Consumer’s Hierarchy of Preferences: Two Ends of the Strategy Spectrum

"To not decide where to go, is to decide where to go." Marshalls and Hermès At the extremes, there are two strategies in retail: 1) work hard to get people to spend a lot for your product so you can charge a high price, 2) work hard to get your product cost down so you can charge a low …

The Consumer’s Hierarchy of Preferences: The Other Side of the Consumer Value Prop

"Clarity of thought is only made possible by clarity of language. Lacking the latter, the former will forever remain out of reach." We are all familiar with the idea that companies have different and specific value propositions (or “value prop” for short). The value prop is what a company offers a customer. At a high …