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Month: December 2020

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Visual (Videos)

Oracle for Startups Featuring Complete Intelligence

Complete Intelligence is in partnership with Oracle for Startups, and here’s a Youtube interview featuring our CEO and founder, Tony Nash, where he explained what the company does and for whom. Get to know the technology behind the superforecasting for manufacturing firms and learn how CI helps them be more profitable specially in a highly volatile market like in the Covid pandemic. There’s also a section on how CI uses the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to better serve its clients around the world.

 

The video above is published by Oracle.

 

❗️ Besides Oracle, Complete Intelligence is also in partnership with Bloomberg, Refinitiv, and Microsoft. Learn more about our Partnership program here.

❗️ Discover how CI can help your company in future cost projections, revenue forecasting, budgeting, and more. Book a demo here for your agile budgeting and forecasting.

 

Show Notes

 

WD: Can you tell me a little bit about what Complete Intelligence does and for who?

 

TN: We work with global manufacturers and we help them better understand their cost and revenue environment. We’ll work directly with their ERP data. Work with IT in the cloud and help them understand the forecast for their costs and for their revenues. So, they’re using their exact data in their exact environment to make great decisions for their clients.

 

WD: I’ve heard what you do referred to as super forecasting, which sounds so cool. Which industries
are best served by the super forecasting that Complete Intelligence offers?

 

TN: It’s mostly manufacturers. We work with chemicals firms, mining firms, electronics manufacturers, industrial manufacturers. So people who make stuff or people who work with firms who make stuff have to know how much that stuff’s gonna sell for, how much it’s gonna cost. Anybody who has risk associated with the future cost or future price, would need what we do to really help them de-risk their future decisions and their proactive planning processes.

 

WD: How are the forecasts that you provide impacted by volatility caused by unprecedented global events, say a pandemic?

 

TN: When Covid came around, when markets were hit dramatically in February, March and into April, we increased the frequency with which we update our forecast to our clients. But we also folded in a lot more volatility-specific algorithms, so that clients would understand what the path back would be like. In a normal year, let’s say the cost forecasts for a major manufacturing firm can be off by up to 30 percent. In some cases even more. So, if you’re planning those expenses and those budgets. You have a huge variance that you’ve got to pad in your budgets.

 

On average, we’re looking at a four to seven percent error rate. We’re helping people in a dramatic way to really de-risk their future outlook on the cost side. What we’re doing is a fully automated process. That guesswork of people sitting around the table saying, “let’s push this number up, let’s take this number down,” that’s a long budgeting process for people. And we really put that in the cloud. We have the machines learn and work through the data and calibrate and reduce that error for clients.

 

WD: Working with global markets and currencies, you must have massive data sets. Increasing the frequency of running those data sets probably requires quite a bit of computational power. How does Complete Intelligence manage that?

 

TN: Wee do that with cloud solutions. We work with OCI and the current generation of OCI to expand our computing capability. Many companies work across clouds. They work across on-perm and cloud and so we’re flexible with all of that. The frequency of those updates, the frequency with which clients want an updated view of the future for different companies changes. You have really fast moving companies who want that on a really high frequency basis. You have slower moving companies who are looking at it maybe monthly. That’s fine. We adjust to all of them.

 

WD: So, flexibility and multi-cloud are two really interesting considerations for dealing with enterprise customers like you do. What are some of the other unique challenges that face startups, like yours right now?

 

TN: With the pandemic, we’ve seen clients be very, very risk-averse. The the risk of taking on a new small company as a vendor is a problem for major companies. They’re trying to figure out how to adjust their business to an uncertain environment. For us, partnering with Oracle has helped to de-risk that decision for major companies. Oracle says Complete Intelligence has a viable solution, let’s talk about how we can help you. And the credibility that Oracle has when we go into a client is really really important for that situation.

 

WD: Aligning with a credible brand that’s been around for 40 years like Oracle is absolutely something that a startup can use to hack their growth. I’m curious about your use of Oracle Cloud and solutions that are open source Cloud native like Kubernetes. Can you talk a little bit about how you work with those Cloud Native Solutions?

 

TN: Kubernetes is a great one where our solution is containerized. We throw it onto Oracle Cloud and we can use it with clients. So, whether it’s the database we use, whether it’s the scheduling languages we use, whether it’s containerization, all of that is flexible on Oracle Cloud. And we can use the open source infrastructure that we have within our specific configuration on Oracle Cloud.

 

Over the last year, OCI has changed a lot in terms of enabling some of the very specific solutions that we’ve had. And very kind of high performance computing solutions that we’ve needed. Accommodation has really given us a lot of confidence with OCI.

 

WD: Your startup has had a pretty unique trajectory. You started the company in Asia and now you’re based in Houston, Texas. What inspired such a significant change?

 

TN: I guess the biggest thought behind there, is this is where the customers are. And to be honest this is where the talent is. The people who are doing the leading edge work in what we’re focused on are here. And the context around manufacturing and the need to automate some of the decisions around manufacturing really are happening in the U.S. and Europe, in a big way.

 

Of course that’s happening in Asia but it’s different in Asia. I spent 15 years in Asia. We conceived of and started Complete Intelligence there but we really utilized as much as we could there. And I came to a point where we just had to move the company to the U.S. to find the resources we need to build the company.

 

It’s been great moving to Texas, has been great. It’s a fantastic business environment. The manufacturing clients here are fantastic. Oil and gas is seeing a lot of headwinds right now which is a real opportunity for us.

 

WD: So the forecast is looking bright for Complete Intelligence?

 

TN: Oh absolutely. Again, with the right partners, we can move into the right clients and any startup trying to go it alone today is going to have a really hard time. It’s possible and it’s probable with the right amount of work put in, but building the right partnerships like our partnership with Oracle has been huge in helping us to accelerate our commercialization and our presence in the market.

 

WD: Absolutely and I know that if startups want to learn more about working with Oracle they can go to oracle.com/startup. If they want to learn more about the exciting work that Complete Intelligence is doing, where should they go?

 

TN: They can go to completeintel.com. We’ve got all of the resources there. We have a weekly newsletter. We have regular video interviews with industry experts, similar to what you’re doing. There are a lot of resources. Our twitter feed is complete_intel as well, there’s a lot there.

 

WD: Great, any secret market intelligence you want to share with our viewers?

 

TN: The changes we’ve seen over 2020 and the risk and volatility we’ve seen over 2020, unfortunately we don’t see a return to normal soon. The challenges that we’ve faced as startups and the challenges that our customers have faced in 2020 aren’t necessarily going away. This type of up and down environments and the persistence that we’ve had to have as startups, 2021 is not going to bring a normal back. We’ll see a little bit more, but as startups we’re going to have to continue to push very, very hard to get the mindshare within those endpoints.

Categories
Podcasts

Work-from-home stocks a defensive play in 2021?

In this BFM episode, Tony Nash explains the defensive play of the WFH company Keane and how it compares to other tech stocks like Tesla? Also, will the good days for the financial and energy stocks continue? And how about the outlook for Sterling as the Brexit deal is being ironed out? Will the Pound appreciate or decline? And why there seems to be a never-ending trade war against China — now recently with Vietnam and Malaysia imposing tariffs on the Chinese steel?

 

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/work-from-home-stocks-a-defensive-play-in-2021 on December 24, 2020.

 

❗️ Check out more of our insights in featured in the CI Newsletter and QuickHit interviews with experts.

❗️ Discover how Complete Intelligence can help your company be more profitable with AI and ML technologies. Book a demo here.

 

BFM Description

 

As we head into 2021, will we see more work-from-home stocks being used as a defensive play? The Morning Run speaks to Tony Nash for his perspective on this, as well as his views on financials and energy stocks, the Sterling, and tit-for-tat trade wars.

Produced by: Mike Gong

 

Presented by: Roshan Kanesan, Wong Shou Ning

 

 

Show Notes

 

WSN: With volumes on U.S. equities drying up ahead of the holiday season, are you expecting investors to hit the sell button or to keep this whole positions over the period? Because the market’s somewhat a little bit more happy today, a little bit more green?

 

TN: I’m not sure, but I’m sure there is not a conviction either way right now. Investors aren’t really sure that they’re ready to pull the plug on things. People are waiting to see what’s going to happen with the stimulus funds. They’re waiting to see how smoothly the transition goes with the US government. They’re waiting to see how companies Q4 earnings come in. So in the next few weeks, aside from some commodities play, I’m not entirely convinced that we’ll see dramatic movements in one way or another.

 

WSN: And I’m just curious following up on that. So for the moment, it still seems that even though the Nasdaq corrected a little bit today, the work-from-home, Keane is here to stay as a defensive play?

 

TN: Sure, that is an effective play, but the benefits or the upside to that play is really questionable. The Nasdaq has over 40% this year. When you look at the valuation multiples on some of these tech companies like Tesla, you’re looking at over a thousand percentage. For some of the tech companies, you’re looking at fifty to 200 to revenue.

 

Some of these tech companies are being played out. That’s not to say they’re going to see necessarily downside. But the upside? I don’t believe it’s necessarily as high as it has been in 2020. We have these moments in markets where you see serious upside in different sectors and then it comes down for a bit. We’ve seen that in 2020. Are we going to see that in 2021? We’re not convinced. That maybe  possible. But we’ve seen some pretty hard closed down for people who’ve had their quickly transition to work from home. A lot of that valuation are largely played out.

 

WSN: If we look at the performance of the S&P 500, it was really the day for financials and also the energy stocks. Do you think these themes will continue into 2021?

 

TN: Certainly, that kind of stock are partly a result of the expectation of stimulus — whether that’s $600 to $2000 per person. There should be more transactional activity in terms of services with energy. There’s an expectation that people will start flying a bit more.

 

What’s positive is the expectation on a  margin within oil and gas firms as they refine their products. I think that’s a bit higher as the margins of the percentage go up as the normal values go up. We’ve been saying for several months that the oil prices will rise in the end of December and early Jan, and that’s playing out. We’ve expecting that for about six months. But we do expect crude prices to fall going into February. So while those margin plays are there now, we don’t expect that to be there at the end of Q1.

 

WSN: Moving to the UK, the Sterling appreciated this morning on the back of the news that Brexit deal might be ironed out. But where do you see the currency heading?

 

TN: We’ve expected the Sterling to weaken a bit by the immediacy of the news. But over time, we expect the Pound to re-appreciate because we really value the U.K. There’s a lot of wishful thinking within the EU that Britain would suffer as they exit the EU. We’ve done a lot of analysis on this over the last three years and there’s really just a lot of upsides for the U.K. to separate. That’s not a political view. That’s purely an economic view. We have expected the Pound to take a bit of a pounding in the short term. But we do expect it to re-appreciate as that separation gets in pace.

 

WSN: Malaysia and Vietnam, they recently placed higher tariffs on Chinese steel. And although unrelated, this comes after China imposed some additional duties on various Australian imports. Do you see this tit for tat tariffs going to continue to be the norm in 2021 and no end to it?

 

TN: We’ve been saying for a couple of years that we expect trade to turn from these fairly invisible activities like subsidy to non tariff barriers, which is really regulatory into direct tariffs. It’s like going back to 1980s pre-WTO where there’s more of a fiscal benefit for the country than the protectionist benefit in a non-tariff barrier regulation.

 

Many countries are a bit tapped out on subsidies, so they’re not necessarily going to be able to pay their industry as much to protect them. So they’re going to have tariffs to generate revenue. Specifically, the Chinese steel, there’s a global glut of Chinese steel, of the Hang Seng, for years. It wasn’t surprising that these tariffs have been levied because they have a little bit of it’s own steel industry. They’re protecting themselves from the glut of Chinese steel.

 

WSN: All right. Thank you for your time. And that was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us his views on global markets.

Categories
Visual (Videos)

CI Futures in Bloomberg Terminal

See CI Futures live on a demo. Book a time here.

 

This video recording was showcased at the online Bloomberg App Portal event last December 15th. This explains the CI Futures, a highly accurate app that forecasts commodities, currency pairs, and equity indices. Our CEO and founder expands on the AI and machine learning technology behind this and how our clients experience success by adding CI Futures in their arsenal of planning tools. Bloomberg Terminal clients can access this right from their dashboards by typing APPS CI<GO>

 

 

Show Notes:

 

Hi everyone. This is Tony Nash with Complete Intelligence. I’d like to walk through our app CI Futures that is on the Bloomberg App Portal.

 

Complete Intelligence is based in Houston, Texas and we’ve built a completely automated, globally integrated artificial intelligence platform that looks at cost and revenue forecasting. We look at markets and what we’re looking at is better ways to help people understand future prices and costs.

 

One of the key issues we’ve seenwith Covid and with all the volatility and uncertainty in the market is companies and investors trying to understand how they plan for that environment. Over the past year, we’ve had a number of companies come to work with us to look at their revenue planning, to look at their exposure to commodities, and to look at their overall exposure to markets.

 

We’ve used CI Futures which is available on the Bloomberg App Portal for example with a global chemicals firm. And with that we’ve helped them reduce their forecast error rate for one of their major products to 4.4 percent on an absolute percentage error basis. At the same time, we’ve helped a global mining firm reduce their error rates on their gold forecasts by 38 percent. As you can see, those two companies have done extraordinarily well in equity markets this year. Whether it’s directly a result of that, we’re not exactly sure. But the message here is that companies that take analytics seriously, who deploy say artificial intelligence solutions can respond better to markets and to customers.

 

As we’ve put together CI Futures and as Complete Intelligence has grown as a company, we’ve really built the company on the basis that the status quo planning process and status quo forecasting process is just flawed. Many companies and many investors rely on consensus forecasts which are very similar to forward curves. And consensus forecasts have a fairly high error rate, 20 percent, in some cases more, in some cases slightly less. But generally, consensus forecasts have a high error rate.

 

People take those in when they’re planning their portfolios or planning their investments or their budgets as a benchmark for their activity. What we’ve seen is with Complete Intelligence, we have on average of 4.6 absolute percent error rate with our forecasts across currencies, commodities, and equity indices. Those that are available on the Bloomberg App Portal.

 

We’ve helped companies really plan and save millions of dollars and we help investors understand their risk exposure. When we look at consensus data, a real tangible comparison we do is look at the full year 2019 consensus forecast to our Complete Intelligence forecasts. These are actual consensus forecasts taken out of the report referenced below this table. And we look at the consensus forecasts in the yellow column. The Complete Intelligence forecasts in the blue and actual forecasts in the gray.

 

When we look at the right-hand side of this table, we see that Complete Intelligence beats consensus forecasts 88 percent of the time. There’s a tangible metric there to show how we’ve performed across say crude oil, industrial metals, and precious metals. When we do this, Complete Intelligence, CI Futures is really powered on publicly available data. We do two things.

 

The first thing we do is take in publicly available data. It’s about 15 and a half billion data items and we’ve built a very large ecosystem to understand how the world economy and how global markets work. We run that process twice a month and we’re taking billions of calculations to understand price action. We work on what’s called an Ensemble Approach.

 

We take fundamental methodologies. We have technical methodologies as well and we look at the best configuration of those methodologies to forecast the assets that are within CI Futures. It’s also possible to take in custom assets from investors and from companies so that we can help them understand their specific items that they’re looking to forecast, whether it’s a cost, whether it’s an investment asset, whether it’s a sales revenue item, something like that. We can take those in from customers and we can put them on a closed login for customers so that they can understand the forecast outlook for those assets.

 

With our methodology, as I said we’re using an Ensemble Approach with billions of items within the context. We actually utilize about 10 thousand scenarios for every asset we forecast. So twice a month, on the first of the month and the 15th of the month, we’re gathering all the publicly available data that we use. We’re testing every line item
every month. We’re weighting that line item and reconfiguring the algorithm and then we’re reforecasting those assets. With every asset, the market movements, the movements in the world economy, the movements and things like world trade and so on and so forth are taken into account so that we can understand what that cost or what that asset price will be every month for the next 12 months.

 

So CI Futures is a subscription service on the Bloomberg App Portal. We have a very simple interface. What we want to do is present users with a monthly interval outlook over the next 12 months. We provide high, base, and low scenarios within that forecast context. Now, the base and low scenarios are one standard deviation applied equally over 12 months. We’re not running discreet scenarios for a high and a low scenario. We’re taking the baseline, the likely scenario and and putting a one standard deviation band around it.

 

What’s really key for us here is that 97 of our forecasts typically have less than 10 percent absolute error. 84% have less than 5% absolute error. We really focus on error performance and with every iteration of our forecast, we’re collecting those error data. We’re understanding how we perform to market and where necessary, we’re making system-wide changes to take account for say volatility or say government intervention and so on and so forth. What’s key to understand here is we are not manually adjusting any individual asset within CI Futures.

 

We continue to iterate the overall ecosystem of CI Futures so that we can best account for volatility. For example after Covid, we introduced much more volatility-specific methodologies so that we could identify ways the volatility would impact market prices. With CI Futures, we’re really trying to help companies and investors do more with less. We have a subscription available for individuals on the Bloomberg App Portal.

 

We’re trying to help people improve net income, improve their cash flow, and improve their valuation or market cap. It’s really important for us to help our clients and to continue to understand how these assets move. If you can check us out on the Bloomberg App Portal, we’d really appreciate it. Thanks very much.

 

Categories
Podcasts

Electoral College Confirms Biden Win

Tony Nash joins Jamie Robertson at the BBC Business Matters podcast and they discussed mostly the US Election as the electoral college confirms Biden win. Or is it too early to tell? They also talked about the recent Google meltdown and why it shouldn’t be a surprise. Also, do Chinatowns around the world suffer because of the anti-China movement? What about the vaccine — will it help us get back to normal at last? And, what’s wrong with California and why do businesses and people move out of the state and to Texas?

 

This podcast was published on December 15, 2020 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x194l551ll3

 

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

Joe Biden has been formally certified as the next president of the United States, with results from electoral colleges in all but one US state giving him 302 votes. This takes him over the 270 threshold required to win the presidency. The electors in each state are appointed to reflect the popular vote, which was won by Mr Biden in November. We get reaction from Washington DC and examine the US democratic process.

 

Two major cyber-incidents on Monday. The first you may well have noticed, the second will have almost certainly passed you by but may be in the long term far more significant. Google applications including YouTube, Gmail and Docs suffered a massive service outage, with users unable to access many of the company’s services. The second was a sweeping hacking campaign that may have attacked the US Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury and Commerce departments and thousands of businesses. We take a look at how working from home may be leaving businesses and government more vulnerable.

 

And we’re in the Philippines where the country has been showing an interest in the very English game of cricket. Throughout the programme, Jamie Robertson is joined by analyst Tony Nash in the United States and social welfare expert Rachel Cartland in Hong Kong.

 

 

Show Notes

 

 

JR: Joe Biden has been formally certified as the next president of the United States, but results from Electoral College is in all but one US state, giving him 302 votes. That takes him over the crucial 270 threshold, which is required to win the presidency. The electors in each state are appointed to reflect the popular vote which has won by Mr. Biden in November. OK, so, Tony, it’s all over. Pretty much, you reckon?

 

TN: I don’t know. I sat with you guys the day after the election and I said, everyone is pretty convinced that it was the end of the line then. And I said at that point, it’d be weeks, if not months before this was settled. And we still have a lot happening here. So honestly, I have no idea what’s going to happen on January 6th, but it’ll be interesting.

 

Look, Donald Trump is always interesting. You can never accuse the guy of being boring. So I wouldn’t be surprised. Actually, your commentator was not right about the president of the Senate, which is Mike Pence, actually has to accept the electors.

 

JR: It’s not just a question of counting. It’s a question of accepting that count as a right.

 

TN: So the speaker of the House and the president, the Senate have to accept the electors. So if they don’t, then it goes to the House. But there’s one vote per state and there are more Republican delegate delegations to the House of Representatives than there are Democrat delegations. If you look purely a state, no. So I actually have no idea how it’s going to end. I have no idea what’s happening on January 6th. But it’s not as simple as this was done because there are, I think, six or seven states where the Republican electors actually protested and actually sent their electors as well. So you have states divided and protesting, it can be problematic, so I have no idea what’s going to happen.

 

JR: I certainly haven’t heard the fat lady sing in us. Tony who feels like we might be losing a battle somewhere here, or do you think it’s not as easy to say as that?

 

TN: First of all, there is more hacking and there’s more information lost than most people are aware of. This is terrible, but I don’t think we should be naive and believe that this is rare.

 

JR: Why would it become public, though? It’s quite interesting that I mean, why tell people this has happened?

 

TN: Because so many companies have been exposed. It’s 18,000, I think. But I think publicly traded companies never disclose that  happens to them, even though they’re obligated to disclose, they don’t govern institutions. You know, it happens all the time. And it’s a daily occurrence.

 

My company is on Google infrastructure for part of our work. And what worries me is we’ll never know what information was exposed, especially with the Google hack. And I think there should be a requirement that companies let people know what has been exposed, but we’ll never know and we’ll never know what was lost and what was exposed. Companies have their their corporate secrets, their trade secrets on their cloud drives. And we never really know if things were exposed. And we never you know.

 

JR: Tony, there’s a Chinatown in Houston. And there’s research to back this up. Chinatowns have suffered worse than many other communities in the U.S. Is it connected to an anti China feeling, do you think? Or is there something else going on here that I haven’t seen?

 

TN: I don’t think there is. I lived in Asia for 15 years and my entire social community for much of that time was Chinese. I understand it at a different level. I do think there is a sensitivity among the Chinese community that they may be targeted for this. So I don’t necessarily believe that is the case. At least it’s not in Houston. Maybe it is in New York. But in Houston, I don’t feel that’s the case at all.

 

JR: I just want to continue our conversation she had earlier, which is about China or at least Chinese Institute of Chinese Chinatowns in the United States, which may have been losing more business than most other communities, possibly because they’re Chinese. And Tony gave a very nuanced view saying, but perhaps there’s a perception this is happening, but it may not be actually true in reality. Right, Tony? A vaccine, is it a shot in the arm for the economy as well? I mean, my impression I got from that interview with Constance Hunter from KPMG was that he thinks it’s going to take a bit of time, but it may be just the light at the end of a tunnel, which everybody needs.

 

TN: Just put the vaccine into context. So fatality rates for Covid, at least in Texas, are a third today of what they were just in September. So it’s more the government halting business that.

 

JR: Can I just challenge you on that? You say it’s a third time. It is a third of the total. But on the other hand, you’re having many more many more cases identified than you were in September. I mean, that may be in absolute terms. I’m not quite sure whether if you’re getting more cases actually reported, if it’s a third of the ones being being reported.

 

TN: More deaths in August.

 

JR: Yes.

 

TN: August 5th and 6th, we had 229 deaths in Texas now were around 139, 146, 121, 128, OK. So right now, the thing that we need to caution both on absolute and percentage numbers, we’re a third as a percent. We’re a third better. We’re a third of what they were in September even.

 

It’s great that we have a vaccine. I’m not trying to pull back on that.

 

But the problem here is that the government pulled the plug on people’s livelihoods. Hundreds of thousands of companies in America are out of business because state and local governments shut economies. That is a fact.

 

JR: You don’t think people would have been frightened to go out, frightened to go to restaurants, frightened to go to cinemas?

 

TN: I believe that people are responsible and they would have washed their hands and done all this stuff, worn masks, all that stuff.

 

Government officials killed local economies. What’s happening right now is federal government officials have not put the stimulus out that they should have put out in August. The package that came out in May was only supposed to last three months. They were supposed to put another package out in August, September. They didn’t. So we’re in on one hand, it’s state and local governments that killed economies and killed hundreds of thousands of companies and millions of jobs. On the other hand, it’s the federal officials who wanted to negotiate small details while people starve. It is government on both ends of this that are harming individuals, killing companies, harming families. It’s terrible.

 

JR: What is wrong with California? What’s so great about Texas?

 

TN: I have an artificial intelligence company in Texas. So we are in a technology ecosystem here in Texas. And Oracle, as you noted, just announced on Friday, they’re coming. Tesla’s moved.

 

I lived in California during the first Internet bubble of the late 90s, early 2000s. And what I find about California now is especially around the talent. They’re good. There’s nothing wrong with the talent there. It’s good. But it’s not the world class that it once was. It’s really expensive and it’s very arrogant. Silicon Valley is, kind of, to use an Asian analogy, it’s the Singapore of the U.S. It’s entitled, expensive, and kind of OK, good, but not great.

 

I’m in Texas and I moved my company from Singapore to Texas because I can find a very experienced technical person who will roll up their sleeves and actually do hard work. People are pretty affordable. The quality of skills here are great and it’s a fantastic business environment.

 

JR: This may sound a little bit like an Englishman talking, but it’s not to do with the weather, is it? And there is more to that question to mention immediate, bearing in mind for the rather high temperatures and wildfires.

 

TN: California’s got the Pacific Ocean and beautiful weather. People are coming here initially because they have to. But then they want to because they realized there are a lot of really nice people here. And I loved it. I lived in California for a long time and I voluntarily moved to Texas because of the business environment. I’ve been here four years now.

 

JR: And Tony, I mean, cricket may be played in far flung things, but in Texas, I don’t think so.

 

TN: You would be surprised, Jamie, 20 miles from my house is the largest cricket complex in America. That’s amazing. So Texas has a very large Indian community and we have the largest cricket complex in America.

Categories
QuickHit

QuickHit: Understanding the Covid Vaccine Supply Chain

Blue Maestro co-founder Kirstin Hancock joined us this week on QuickHit to explain the sensitivities around transporting the Covid vaccines. How vaccine manufacturers are adjusting to the special handling requirements, and how technology helps make sure that these are delivered in perfect condition?

 

Kirstin is the co-founder of Blue Maestro, which was set up eight years ago. Blue Maestro designs and manufactures Bluetooth sensors and data loggers. These are very small devices that have a PCB chip in them that use Bluetooth technology to communicate with smartphones to measure variations of the environmental conditions such  as temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, etc.

 

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This QuickHit episode was recorded on December 11, 2020.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this QuickHit episode are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any content provided by our guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

 

 

Show Notes

 

TN: Great. Okay. That sounds really interesting and I’ve been looking at you guys for a long time and what I’m really interested initially to talk about as we look at the environment with Covid and a number of other things happening this week and next week, I’d really like to understand what you’re seeing around the vaccine supply chains because I know you guys do some work there and I know it’s critical to see your types of products in those supply chains. Otherwise, we don’t get live vaccine, right? So, can you talk to us about a little bit of the work that you’re doing there?

 

KH: One of the criteria for the CDC is that sensors and data loggers are able to measure temperature in real time and that this is able to be recorded over a period of time and that maximum and minimum temperatures can be seen throughout the time.  Our sensors and data loggers are all unique.

 

They have a unique MAC ID address on them and they can be named, and logging intervals can be set at specific intervals. So, within the storage and transportation of vaccine, Tempo Disc in particular, is a really useful tool because it does all of these things. Now, we have actually been using Tempo Disc in a number of different countries to transport vaccines already.

 

We’ve been working with the UN this year, 2020, to deliver vaccines in developing countries in Africa through a project that they’ve been working on and that’s been very successful.

 

TN: Very good. So, what are the considerations like how long are these things usually in transport? I mean, what variability are… are there huge temperature swing variabilities? Are there huge… What are the kinds of things that the vaccine makers are really worried about because this seems like a really delicate supply chain?

 

KH: What vaccine makers are really concerned about is that the vaccines go out of their temperature range. Now, using our app for Tempo Plus 2, you can see real-time data. So, you can see exactly what the temperature is of the container that the vaccines are being put in and that’s generally what our users are doing.

 

They’re using Tempo Disc in the containers and they’re labeling them according to that batch of vaccines and that’s really important so that they’ve got the traceability from when they go from the manufacture of the vaccine right out to the pharmacies, the nurses, the clinics where these vaccines are administered.  And I think that’s probably the number one concern that these vaccines go out of temperature range because when they do, there is an emergency procedure that goes into place and basically, all of the vaccines have to be disposed of.

 

TN: Interesting. Okay. I really wanted to talk to you because with all of the talk of this distribution, I know this is probably something that there’s not a lot of thought from kind of your average consumer. But it’s such an important part of what’s happening here that I wanted to get some understanding of that. So, can you also tell me or help me understand… Blue Maestro does a lot of other work around healthcare and we’re an artificial intelligence company, we use a huge amount of data. You guys are an IoT company. You do the same. So outside of the vaccine supply chain, how are people using your products around health care and life sciences?

 

KH: We have a number of different use cases for Tempo Disc in a number of different healthcare applications. We work with a number of different US companies to monitor specific environmental conditions and I’ll just give you a couple of examples. We’re working with Boston O&P Orthopedics and Prosthetics to develop a solution where Tempo Disc is used in prosthetics to monitor how long people are wearing their prosthetics.

 

We also work with a company called GoGoband on a device that monitors when children or people with disabilities have wet themselves at nighttime because then their parents can get alerted. So, there’s a variation. We work with some international companies to actually monitor and record the pharmaceutical equipment that they have throughout the factory and then for its transportation to particular pharmacies within a number of different countries.

 

TN: Interesting. So, with the pharmacy activity, I mean that’s very precise manufacturing processes. As we get more into say precision manufacturing, how are manufacturers using your devices to understand precision around their manufacturing processes? Because again, as we have more sophisticated products, manufacturers have to know this stuff. It reduces defects. But it also creates ultimately better products for customers. So, can you help us understand a little bit about that?

 

KH: So, we issue conformity certificates and calibration certificates. They’re a little bit different. But basically, what they do is they track the PCB devices from the very start of the manufacturing process. So then when they’re programmed by our team, we have each device has a unique ID so that particular device can be tracked right from its manufacturing cycle right to its end user.

 

Now this is really important for traceability within the supply chain because the end user knows exactly which product they’re using for what purpose. So, if they’re looking at just temperature, they can have an ID that they can trace all the way through. And this ID is, it’s embedded in the electronics firmware. But then the end user can also change this so they can give it its own name.

 

So, if you’ve got a vaccine batch, then you can give it that idea of the vaccine batch. But then you can trace it right back. Now, our calibration certificates are two-point temperature calibration certificates. They’re very accurate.  Our devices use a product called si7020 silicon labs sensor. It’s one of the most accurate on the market. Its accuracy is 0.3 percent and we’ve had that tested and very verified by labs and our devices are very accurate.

 

TN: Very interesting, Kirstin. I think we could go on for a couple hours talking about this stuff. But I just wanted to kind of get a quick overview out to people so they understand what’s happening particularly with vaccines but also with other aspects of the manufacturing supply chain. So, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

 

For anybody who’s watching, please check out the details in the bottom of the page. Also follow us on Youtube. Thanks very much. Have a great day.

Categories
Podcasts

IPO Season Has US Investors Agog, Again

Tony Nash is back in the BFM podcast to break down what´s happening in the US Market with IPOs like Doordash and AirBNB selling at a higher price than expected. What´s up with the tech stocks? It´s obviously IPO season, and what should investors do. Should they buy? Also discussed is the current oil price rally to the high 40s. What is the expectation or forecast for oil in the last month of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 for oil?

 

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/ipo-season-has-us-investors-agog-again on December 10, 2020.

 

 

BFM Description

 

Produced by: Mike Gong

 

Presented by: Khoo Hsu Chuang, Wong Shou Ning

 

It’s IPO season again in America and Doordash is first out the, well, door with a pop and wallop, while Airbnb is next, also with a higher price range, like Doordash. Which of the debutantes will be a Buy and which a Sell? And whither oil prices?

 

 

Tony Nash, the CEO of Complete Intelligence, discusses.

 

 

Show Notes

 

 

WSN: On global markets, we got to the line with us tonight, the chief executive of Complete Intelligence to break it down for us. Tony, thanks for talking to us. Nasdaq closed in the red after a 10-day rally. What’s your view? Is this just a technical correction?

 

TN: Well, Nasdaq still up 36 percent year to date. Things are still pretty good with tech stocks. But it’s been a lot of retail investors so far this year focused on fang stocks. Part of this decline today may be related to the stimulus talks. There are a number of other things involved, but if there is more stimulus, we may see more investment, especially in tech stocks. If you remember, the tech rally started in Q2 of this year really on people investing via Robin Hood in small increments. There were other institutional and retail investors, but Robin Hood investors really led to a lot of the run ups in these tech stocks.

 

KHC: And I want to pivot this conversation to an IPO, which is closed last night. So Doordash it debuted with an 80 percent jump to close at $189 from an IPO price of 102. Does that make you a buyer?

 

TN: It makes me a wait-and-see-er. Tech stocks have done really well. Stocks like Palantir are up 200 percent or something since their IPO. A lot of people are looking at those as an opportunity, which is quite possible. But tech IPOs tend to settle shortly after. We saw this with Palantir for a few weeks after the IPO. It declined, then it meandered. And then it really only started coming up over the past couple of weeks.

 

Doordash seems to have risen very quickly. I think it’s really on hopes, unfortunately, that a lot of the work-from-home stuff continues. Without work-from-home orders or stay-at-home orders, it’s really hard to see Doordash continuing at these levels. I think with a somewhat normal return or return to normal, people start going out again. Some of the people would at least rather go out than order in.

 

KHC: The other IPO is Airbnb, which is supposed to be priced later today. Is this a name you’re excited about?

 

TN: Sure I am. What’s interesting about Airbnb is it’s been very resilient with Covid. We’ve seen long-term rentals via Airbnb. We’ve seen people travel using Airbnb. When travel starts up again in a big way, they benefit as well. So it’s a really interesting name for me. It depends on what were the prices and where it goes. But on the face of it, it’s a very interesting name.

 

WSN: Yeah, it really is IPO season, isn’t it, Tony? I mean, what’s driving the liquidity? Is it still a retail market, institutional or a bit of both?

 

TN: A lot of it is retail. The retail investors are looking for the quick upside. People are trying to close out the year with as much juice as they can. I think a lot of the institutions were in very early. They take quick profits and then they just wait and see what happens. But if you look at the distribution, the allocation of some of these recently IPO tech companies, it’s a lot of retail investors.

 

KHC: With virus cases rising in the states, it’s almost certain that the FDA will authorize the emergency use of the vaccine today. So this brings back the question, do you think that the stimulus package that everyone is waiting or expecting, will they still be in the quantum of 908 billion or would it actually be downsized?

 

TN: I think it’ll be around the current level. The problem is, this is something that should have happened two months ago. And you’ve seen over the past two months, the U.S. economy really start to stall and sputter out. The employment picture is looking grimmer. The demand picture is looking a bit grimmer. If the U.S. wanted to keep things moving at the pace it had been in Q3, it really should have happened in late October. But it didn’t for political reasons.

 

And I think it’s really critical for these guys to come out with something before Christmas. The politicians look really stingy, like the real economy doesn’t affect them, which is true. And if they come out with something, they have the likelihood of looking like heroes before Christmas. So this is likely political theater so that they can build up some drama for a last minute agreement before the Christmas holiday.

 

WSN: Sliding over to oil, Tony, with crude inventories starting to build up, can prices break through the fifty dollar resistance level, do you think? And what are the catalysts needed to carry it across the threshold?

 

TN: Yeah, we think they can. So we’ve seen inventories build up. You know, they built up 15 million barrels over the past week, which is quite a lot well ahead of expectations. But, you know, we’ve expected oil to cross the 50 dollar mark in January, late December or in January. When we started saying this a few months ago, people really pushed back on this. We said we saw a spike in January in the crude price. And so we still believe that. NYNEX crude is trading at forty seven dollars right now. So even with the supply glut right now, we’re still seeing a forty seven dollar WTI price. So we think we’ll see high 40s, low 50s by January. Brent, of course, will be slightly higher than that. So we think breaking through fifty dollars is quite likely, especially at the start of Q1.

 

WSN: Hey, Tony, thanks so much for your time with us. Tony Nash, the chief executive of Complete Intelligence. And just to make a couple of remarks. And while we just discussed with him. The higher oil prices go, obviously the better it is for Malaysia because we are generally an oil country. West Texas is at 46, 47 right now is about 49 dollars, definitely, too.

 

He also talked about the Doordash  and how he’s waiting to see Doordash. The numbers are not huge. They’ve only got like five million subscribers and they charged off the food guys 30 percent commissions to just deliver the stuff.

 

WSN: It’s not like they’ve had a choppy fiscal quarterly performance some months at some quarters up, some quarters down. And, you know what is so it’s so frothy. I mean, they nearly double the reference price on IPO day itself, already increased from two bucks, 100 to close 182 crazy, crazy days.

 

KHC: Well, I think, you know, at the end of the day, what is causing this one is that tech seems to be, you know, the darling darling on Wall Street. That’s when the second is that that clearly there still is a lot of cheap money flowing everywhere and nowhere to go.

 

WSN: Yeah, of course. Tony was talking about the Robinho traders, right?

 

KHC: Yeah. So as long as interest rates remain close to zero, I think people are willing to watch. And I used the funds, all investors, you know, regardless of whatever valuation. So it doesn’t really matter what your valuations are anymore. Exactly. So even like for Airbnb, you don´t even talk about earnings, you’re talking about price to sales because there is no earnings.

 

WSN: OK, well, talking about tech Facebook, right. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 46 states, 46 states, that’s just fall short of the full 50 complimented America. They’ve all brought antitrust cases against Facebook and accusing the company of using the social media dominance to crush competition. They’re calling for penalties that include a forced breakup and they are accusing Facebook of conducting a years long course of anti-competitive conduct.

 

KHC: Well, in particular, the FTC highlighted the acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 as designed to neutralize any competition, because the argument is that they are a monopoly and they cut off services to squeeze rival developers. So the FTC said it was seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could potentially require Facebook to unwind its Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. Now, if I looked I remember correctly this morning, Facebook closed down, I think, close to two point six percent based on this news. So it doesn’t seem like, you know, markets are really concerned about this. Or maybe the point is any dispute with the government takes forever and ever and ever so maybe for the moment, I think people are just shrugging it off.