This month’s release is reflective of one of life’s important facts: context matters. To help provide greater context for you in your research process, we’ve added audio replay functionality to call transcripts.

Transcript Audio Files Now Available

It’s not surprising that transcripts are one of our most used content sources on the Sentieo platform. They offer great value by providing you a direct line into the thinking of management.

One thing written transcripts can often lack: context such as tone. To help solve that issue, we’ve now added audio files for the conversations that underlie the transcript. This provide a more robust perspective on transcript discussions.

If you are a current Sentieo user and want to learn more about accessing transcript audio, log into Sentieo to read the June 2022 release notes. If you’d like to learn more about the Sentieo Platform, contact us today to meet with a solution executive.

The post June 2022 Release Highlights appeared first on Sentieo.

Following the announcement of our content partnership with GLG, the World’s Insight Network, we sat down with Rustom Birdie, a GLG expert and former senior Affirm executive, to discuss the dynamics of the Buy Now, Pay Later (or “BNPL”) space. 

Technology, fintech, and payment companies’ stocks have been very weak recently against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop: increasing interest rates, increasing volatility, increasing inflation, and a cyclical low in the unemployment rate. 

(interactive chart link) 

Fintechs have underperformed the broader technology group YTD, while tech has been lagging the broader market.

(interactive chart link) 

Payment companies such as PYPL, SQ, and AFRM have underperformed the fintechs group.

(interactive chart link) 

Yet at the same time, consumer search interest for the three main BNPL players, AFRM, SQ, and Klarna (private) has been consistently increasing over the years. 

(interactive chart link)

Similarly, we are seeing increased corporate interest in BNPL based on the growth in transcripts that mention the term. 

(interactive chart link)

With this as background, we were looking to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying dynamics of the BNPL space as investors are starting to look for potentially attractive investment opportunities following the large declines recently. 

Our webinar with the GLG expert and former AFRM executive covers the following topics:

• BNPL 101: for people just starting to look at the space, what are the essentials, such as product types, revenue sources, and the benefits for all three parties involved: the retailer, the consumer, and the BNPL provider

• We then explored whether inflation will help or hurt the upcoming summer sales season: do higher prices mean stronger demand for payment options other than upfront payments?

• Similarly, we discussed the effect of high-interest rates on the ecosystem, including the repricing of asset-backed financing facilities 

• We then covered the main differences between AFRM, SQ, and Klarna’s BNPL offering not just from consumer and partner perspectives but also from a regulatory one

• Finally, Rustom gave his views on whether BNPL providers are “one-trick ponies”, or is the BNPL business a sustainable platform on which to build out a fuller financial service offering

You can watch the recording of the webinar here.

The post BNPL: Will Investors Buy Now, and Get Paid Later? (webinar recap) appeared first on Sentieo.

Communication Services Sector 

“We are well on track to our capital markets targets to take unit deployment costs down 25% on a like-for-like basis, inflation is not affecting us, we have long-term contracts.”

Timotheus Hottges, Deutsche Telekom AG – Chairman of Management Board, CEO & Member of the Data Privacy Advisory Board (February 2022)

“Nobody should like inflation at the levels we’re seeing in the United States right now. That approach or policy that ultimately doesn’t get that contained quickly is not going to be good for anybody, my company or any other company. And our focus right now as a country, our focus from a policy perspective, our focus on everything we should be doing is about getting that genie back in the bottle and dealing with in an aggressive way, it’s not healthy for anything.”

John T. Stankey, AT&T Inc. – CEO, President & Director (January 2022)

Industrials Sector 

“On the right-hand side, watch items have not changed since our last Capital Market Day: traffic recovery pace, obviously; recruitment and wage inflation; supply chain monitoring. And this is going to be, let’s say, the main watch items, I’d like to say: cost inflation; shortage of materials and components.”

Olivier Andries, Safran SA – CEO & Director (February 2022)

“Because when we talk about these inflationary pressures, we may have a supplier taking advantage of these capacity constraints to play the price card. We may just run out of access to a component.”

H. Lawrence Culp, General Electric Company – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“So we expect to be able to continue to leverage that pricing ability as we work through the inflationary challenges that we face in the new year.”

Michael F. Roman, 3M Company – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“And in a situation where inflation is popping up very quickly and to a very high number, that’s quite of a challenge”

Guillaume M.J.D Faury, Airbus SE – CEO & Executive Director (February 2022)

“And today, we believe we are able to secure trucks at a lower cost than the vast majority of the industry, both in an inflationary market on the right, and a deflationary market on the left.”

Lior Ron, Uber Freight LLC – CEO (February 2022)

“However, if we operate in a sustained higher inflation environment, it’s quite possible that the rate of that decline per unit will adjust to be a slightly less steep decline, which then is an effective relative price increase relative to the rate of decline we’ve had in the past..”

Erik Engstrom, RELX PLC – CEO & Executive Director (February 2022)

“As a leader, a technology leader, we are confident to balance cost inflation with pricing actions over time. All in all, this led to another excellent performance across all financial metrics.”

Roland Busch, Siemens Aktiengesellschaft – President, CEO & Member of Management Board (February 2022)

“I think it’s fair to say the single biggest pressure that the law firms face is that wage inflation.”

Stephen John Hasker, Thomson Reuters Corporation – President, CEO & Director (February 2022)

“The inflation that we’ve experienced in our Americas businesses and our U.S.-based businesses has been significantly higher than what we’ve seen in other markets around the world.”

Craig Arnold, Eaton Corporation plc – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“These swift pricing actions allow us to stay ahead of the inflation curve, driving a 5% increase year-over-year on top line and yielding approximately 50 basis points of margin expansions net of inflation.”

Darius E. Adamczyk, Honeywell International Inc. – Chairman of the Board & CEO (February 2022)

“Yes, it was a challenge in going into Q3 in North America and with the labor market, big volumes, component shortage and all that and also on the inflation of commodities and components and so on.”

Bjorn Klas Otto Rosengren, ABB Ltd – CEO (February 2022)

“As 2022 kicks off, we’re fully focused on recovering inflationary cost increases through our pricing programs and through the aggressive management of our cost structure.”

James C. Fish, Waste Management, Inc. – President, CEO & Director (February 2022)

“The external environment is challenging due to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, labor tightness, upstream supply chain jams and rising inflation.”

Carol B. Tome, United Parcel Service, Inc. – CEO & Director (February 2022)

“As you know, we implemented price increases during 2021. We’re taking further action in 2022 with the intent to offset the impact of underlying inflation.”

D. James Umpleby, Caterpillar Inc. – Chairman of the Board & CEO (January 2022)

“While we expect to drive further efficiencies in 2022, our plan reflects the impact of increased inflation, any number of discrete strategic investment opportunities.”

James M. Foote, CSX Corporation – President, CEO & Director (January 2022)

Consumer Staples Sector 

“We continue to refresh our core portfolio. And while we’ve talked to you about this for several years, it becomes even more important during times of raw material inflation.”

Noel R. Wallace, Colgate-Palmolive Company – Chairman, CEO & President (February 2022)

“So we have inflation now across the board, but we’ve been dealing with inflation for many years in developing markets, and our revenue management toolkit is being very helpful over the years, but it’s almost like we are in a 2.0 version with data that we have in hand now.”

Michel Dimitrios Doukeris, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV – CEO (February 2022)

“In addition, unprecedented levels of inflation across nearly all components of cost of goods and cost to serve necessitated multiple pricing actions across the industry, most of which lagged inflation in terms of timing in the market..”

Robert J. Gamgort, Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. – Executive Chairman, President & CEO (February 2022)

“So obviously, we’re dealing with a number of unknowns. Where exactly inflation is going? How much pricing we can get away with?”

Ulf Mark Schneider, Nestle S.A. – CEO, Member of Executive Board & Director (February 2022)

“We’re working closely with our suppliers to manage inflation, finding a few places where we can roll back prices, and we’re paying close attention to how we manage our opening price point items.”

C. Douglas McMillon, Walmart Inc. – President, CEO & Director (February 2022)

“And I think you have to recognize as well that the cost inflation pressures also hitting private label. So I think you’re going to see that too play itself out.”

Laxman Narasimhan, Reckitt Benckiser Group plc – Group CEO & Executive Director (February 2022)

“As we continue to take this quite assertive price increases, as we are saying in the context of very high generic consumer inflation, energy bills, the big question is, indeed, whether disposable incomes will be hit to the point that it will dampen overall consumer spend and beer spend as well.”

Rudolf Gijsbert Servaas van den Brink, Heineken N.V. – Chairman of the Executive Board & CEO (February 2022)

“Price elasticity is still strong in the U.S. There’s a lot of moving parts at the moment in terms of price of gas, employment and inflation and everything. I mean we’ll take it step by step.” 

Jack Marie Henry David Bowles, British American Tobacco p.l.c. – CEO, Member of Management Board & Director (February 2022)

“Further recovery in 2022 will be determined by macro factors, including overall consumer sentiment as well as supply chain challenges; labor shortages; and of course, the inflationary pressures and interest rates.”

James Robert B. Quincey, The Coca-Cola Company – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“2022 has started well. But the biggest challenge we’ll face this year is navigating a further step-up in input cost inflation… Pricing stepped up to its highest level in the decade as we responded to the significant inflation that we’re seeing across commodities and other input costs.”

Alan W. Jope, Unilever PLC – CEO & Executive Director (February 2022)

Health Care Sector 

“We have a formal inflation task force that we’ve established, with multiple different pillars within that and dedicated groups, working on everything from rethinking our logistics chain, and that includes looking at alternative shipping partners in a number of areas.”

Thomas E. Polen, Becton, Dickinson and Company – President, CEO & Chairman (February 2022)

“At this particular point in time, our book of business for 2022 is pretty much accomplished and part of ’23 is accomplished. But we’re building in some flexibility to reflect the inflationary pressures that might exist, and we’ll continue to work through those as we work through our contract portfolio with the different payers.”

Samuel N. Hazen, HCA Healthcare, Inc. – CEO & Director (January 2022)

“Another area, obviously, on the macro side is supply chains and inflation challenges that every company is facing, and obviously, kind of currency headwinds. So I’d say those are all challenges that are facing a lot of medtech companies, companies in health care, and quite frankly, a lot of companies outside of our sector.”

Robert B. Ford, Abbott Laboratories – Chairman of the Board, President & CEO (January 2022)

“We do see inflationary pressure on our own costs. Certainly, hospitals are going to be seeing it in their cost, labor costs and otherwise. And what that implies for us going forward, we’ll work to balance.”

Gary S. Guthart, Intuitive Surgical, Inc. – President, CEO & Director (January 2022)

Materials Sector 

“We had to absorb inflation and minimize the impact. We had, of course, to swallow EUR 2 billion increase in energy costs.”

Benoit Potier, L’Air Liquide S.A. – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“This was required to compensate for significant incremental costs from supply constraints and much high inflation pressure on our raw material and freight costs, discussed by close to 20% in the fourth quarter, nearly double the rate we saw in the third.”

Christophe Beck, Ecolab Inc. – President, CEO & Director (February 2022)

“However, I do have some concerns on the economic backdrop driven by continued COVID challenge, the impact of supply chain constraints, inflation, energy costs and geopolitical tensions.”

Seifollah Ghasemi, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. – Chairman, President & CEO (February 2022)

“Even with the increase in consolidated sales, we were not able to fully overcome the impacts of raw material and other cost inflation, raw material availability and the Omicron variant in the year.”

John G. Morikis, The Sherwin-Williams Company – Chairman of the Board, President & CEO (January 2022)

Information Technology Sector 

“So I think, as Prashanth said, cost inflation, we’re in the post-Moore’s Law era, cost inflation, I think, is going to be a long-term facet of the economic dynamic of the semiconductor business. So I expect that cost increases will moderate, but there will be inflation, I think, for the medium to long term here.”

Vincent T. Roche, Analog Devices, Inc. – President, CEO & Director (February 2022)

“So I think that clearly, we have customers who are definitely trying to buy ahead of price increases.”

Charles H. Robbins, Cisco Systems, Inc. – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“So inflation is affecting our business in a different way than it would be the overall CPI. So if you have inflation expecting rent, while that’s generally not running through our rails to a large extent. So that could again be a very different picture. Taking all of that into account, fundamentally, notwithstanding the impact that inflation has that it could be negative on consumers, on businesses and so forth. There is an impact on GDV if it’s moderate inflation that would be showing in our numbers.”

Michael Miebach, Mastercard Incorporated – CEO, President & Director (January 2022)

“Further, we’d say, over time, we think we have a structurally superior margin model for our business where I think everybody is seeing acute inflation and foundry costs and others in the industry where our factory network will give us a lot more opportunities to create a more balanced cost structure that others in the industry will not be able to accomplish.”

Patrick P. Gelsinger, Intel Corporation – CEO & Director (January 2022)

Utilities Sector

“About half of our operating margin is automatically protected from inflation as a result of regulatory frameworks and contracts within the excess prices. And for the remainder, we expect market prices to reflect increase in cost. In addition, our major supply contract for 2022 are already closed with fixed or hedged prices protecting ourselves from any potential duration of price shock in the global supply chains.”

Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan, Iberdrola, S.A. – Executive Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“In terms of inflation, we are seeing labor inflation as the one thing I would point to.”

Lynn J. Good, Duke Energy Corporation – Chairman, President & CEO (February 2022)

Real Estate Sector 

“There are different types of price increases. We’re actually implementing some baseline, sort of new pricing for new deals because of a broader set of inflationary characteristics and a deep confidence in the value that we deliver to customers. Those I view as more structural. But then in other markets, there are more temporal pricing adjustments associated directly with the utility volatility. And I wouldn’t expect those to be permanent.”

Charles J. Meyers, Equinix, Inc. – President, CEO & Director (February 2022)

“The other thing is that I think if you’re uncertain about the inflation outlook, which is what a lot of the discussion is, is it inflation, is it supply chain, is it short term, is it long term, not a bad thing to own modestly leveraged real estate in an asset class that’s in the equilibrium, actually better than equilibrium, a couple of hundred basis points tighter than equilibrium, when you have replacement costs that give you that buffer. So we have the buffer of the mark-to-market in the 30% range that Tom talked about. But we also have the buffer of replacement costs going up, which Gene talked about. That’s just the future buffer that we haven’t started talking about yet.”

Hamid R. Moghadam, Prologis, Inc. – Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO (January 2022)

“We have escalators built into our contracts internationally. They’re largely driven tying to inflation. Our land, which is our biggest cost, has fixed escalators largely in the United States and again, kind of the same basis internationally. And our payer role is the next largest expense, which is somewhat controllable as well. So I don’t really look at the inflation as being — having a significant impact on our business.”

Thomas A. Bartlett, American Tower Corporation – President, CEO & Director (January 2022)

Energy Sector 

“We are confident EOG’s innovative and technology-driven culture can offset inflationary pressures this year.”

Ezra Y. Yacob, EOG Resources, Inc. – CEO & Director (February 2022)

“So what you’ve seen or what you hear from Joel is that we have very little exposure to inflation in terms of our operating costs.”

Francois Lionel Poirier, TC Energy Corporation – CEO, President & Director (February 2022)

“In procurement with developing long-term supply agreements, like we would have our long-term relationships, like we would have in the oil and gas business. So it’s one of the things that I think we’re working with them on to these frame agreements that we’ve traditionally used in oil and gas, to see if they can develop long-term relationships, Jason, there. So — and some of these megawatts that we’re flipping on at the moment look like they’re not being impacted by inflation prices. They seem to be very attractive.”

Bernard Looney, BP p.l.c. – CEO & Director (February 2022)

“Yes, we see some price inflation as well. Of course, most of the price inflation that is being talked about today is, of course, in cost of living and clearly driven also by energy prices. If you look into our supply chain, though, it’s a slightly different story. I think probably where we see most of the supply chain cost inflation is actually in the renewable space. So wind turbines, significantly up, but also battery costs, we see the raw materials there also being significantly affected by inflation and supply chain. That’s something that we are watching very carefully because, of course, quite often, you bid on projects where you have to take a view on how costs then subsequently will develop as well. And that’s probably the most significant part.”

Ben Van Beurden, Shell plc – CEO & Director (February 2022)

Financials Sector 

“But just to put it into context, it’s hard to predict how inflation will move forward over the next year or 2, but there’s likely to be inflation there.”

Noel P. Quinn, HSBC Holdings plc – Group CEO, Member of the Group Management Board & Executive Director (February 2022)

“And as you know, we have been very clear that we have believed that, particularly in Europe, interest rate policy and QE have been by far wrong because it was trying to drive certain effects that never materialized, higher investments and others. So now it’s really high time that we increase interest rates. We have minus 5% to 6% interest rates in Germany now, which is basically robbery of private people’s money and the forecast from the Central Bank will all wrong, right? So last year, they said there is no inflation, then the inflation would be very short, and then there was what now. People have come to recognize that it’s there… You can have very negative effects on spread widening that are unintended.”

Oliver Bate, Allianz SE – Chairman of the Management Board & CEO (February 2022)

“Rates. You’ve heard some of the rhetoric. We believe that rates will continue to trend above expected loss costs with an inflation buffer in there. We saw in the fourth quarter where there was concern and fear around Property, and Property turned back. And I call out not only to ourselves but to everybody on this call, how we thought there would be deceleration in 2021, but there was a respect in the industry and a reflection in the industry on inflation costs, and the market is reacting rationally to that. And we think that will continue into 2022.”

David Hughes McElroy, American International Group, Inc. – Executive VP & CEO of General Insurance (February 2022)

“We also think that scale matters everywhere in business. And there’s going to be continued consolidation, continued repositioning activity. And the environment that we’re shifting into, given we’re moving into an environment with probably above trend inflation for a period of time, actually is going to force companies to think about their strategic positioning differently, and we’ll benefit from that… Inflation has the risk of being a real headwind to growth.”

David Solomon, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. – Chairman & CEO (February 2022)

“The only incremental color I’d give is, if anything, we’re seeing more interest in real assets with yield. So anything with some inflation protection, so think infrastructure and real estate. As we see inflation expectations go up, we’re finding even more interest in those asset classes.”

Scott C. Nuttall, KKR & Co. Inc. – Co-CEO & Director (February 2022)

“What are the uncertainties? Obviously, on the one hand, it’s the policy era in the sense that you wind up with massive increases in interest rates, which take economies into recession. We’ve not factored that into our outlook. At this point in time, though we think it’s unlikely, even if there are 7 or 8 rate hikes, that would take rates up to about 2% levels, and 2% levels are still manageable. If the Central Banks find that inflation is too sticky, and therefore, rates get back to 3%, 3.5%, 4% level, then that’s another story.”

Piyush Gupta, DBS Group Holdings Ltd – CEO & Executive Director (February 2022)

The post Inflation: Here is What 55 CEOs Said During the Q4 Earnings Season appeared first on Sentieo.

So far, we’ve explored how vast information landscapes have led to information overload and how AI is helping cut through the noise.

Today, we’re going to take a look at how a centralized research approach can help firms leverage technology to improve their workflows and transparency.

Power Up Research Workflows to Stay Ahead of the Pack

Today’s markets move on news at lighting speeds, so the ability to discover, digest, develop and deliver research insights can be the difference between generating alpha and dealing with performance lags.

The graphic below highlights some of the ways AI and other technologies are impacting and improving the research process.

Making the Case by Making a Plan

While AI tools may seem like the perfect solution to the information overload suffered by many analysts, poor implementation can add to the burden. As with any digital transformation project, firms must fully understand what problems they’re addressing and the capabilities of their people.

Additionally, having a sound change management strategy in place is important so analysts know why and how you’re introducing a new solution. A well-thought-out approach should also consider how to ease any analyst concerns about technology eventually replacing them.

If you’d like to learn more, we dive deeper about putting AI and technology to work in your research process in our blog post here or download the full briefing paper here.

The post Design Research Workflows to Better Leverage Technology Benefits appeared first on Sentieo.

This time around, we’re exploring how technology is helping to manage this problem it helped create. 

AI, machine learning, and natural language processing have led to the development of tools analysts can use to overcome research process efficiency challenges and supercharge the hunt for alpha. While none of these tools replace humans, they augment the decision-making process and ultimately help to build more robust investment cases. 

Download full graphic.

Emotions like overconfidence or fear can lead to significant inefficiencies that provide a valuable alpha source. Sentiment analysis tracks what executives are saying about a company, which can be compared to competitor statements or other analysts’ commentary. 

Sentieo partnered with the Harvard Business Review (HBR) to publish a briefing paper highlighting how inefficient research processes can hinder a firm’s pursuit of alpha. It also explores the idea that while technology is part of the cause, intensifying the flow of information, it can also play a role in the solution.

If you liked what we covered today, feel free to check out the blog post with further insights on this topic or download the full briefing paper here.

The post Overcoming Information Overload: 5 Ways AI is Helping appeared first on Sentieo.

Sentieo partnered with the Harvard Business Review (HBR) to publish a briefing paper that highlights how inefficient research processes can hinder a firm’s pursuit of alpha and while technology is part of the cause, intensifying the flow of information, it can also play a role in the solution. 

One of the key foundational themes of the paper: the challenges that analysts face when researching investment opportunities. For emerging funds, these challenges are often heightened due to their impacts on smaller research teams.

Download the full infographic.

But a good investment team knows that information inefficiencies present opportunities for alpha. As a result, if you can create a more efficient method for your analysts to move through the process from idea generation to investment recommendation, your firm can establish a competitive advantage.

Today, the evolving landscape of AI, machine learning and natural language processing technologies opens new paths for emerging investment funds to level the playing field with larger competitors. We’ll explore this in our next insight piece.

In the meantime, feel free to check out the blog post on this research or download the full briefing paper here.

The post Information Overload appeared first on Sentieo.

Tools offering instant messaging and video conferencing capabilities are here to stay. These tools have established their place firmly in the workflows of all teams, from development teams in SaaS companies to M&A teams at MNCs. The volume of communication taking place on these tools is increasing ever so steadily and, in response to the interest from our users, we are committed to integration with such tools.

Following the rollout of our Slack integration earlier this year, we are excited to announce that our Sentieo and Microsoft Teams integration is now available.

The Microsoft Office Suite is the solution of choice for many Sentieo customers across the globe. The suite includes Microsoft Teams to facilitate communication and collaboration across teams. Although the adoption of these tools should make collaboration easier and should lead to improved productivity and efficiency, sometimes users have to context switch too much to use their combination of tools effectively.

In order to reduce the friction while discussing your Sentieo research and content on Teams, we have rolled out our Teams integration. Once enabled, this integration allows users to search, post, and discuss their Sentieo content, all of this without leaving Teams. It also allows our users to post content directly to Teams when they are working in Sentieo without leaving Sentieo.

Find and share Sentieo notes and documents in Teams

You can now include your notes in your conversations effortlessly without having to switch platforms. In any conversation, search for your content on the Teams app provided by Sentieo and select what you want to share. When a note or document is posted to Teams, the title, note/document metadata, and a preview of the content will be displayed.

Send notes and documents to Teams from Sentieo

You can also share your notes and documents in Teams directly from Sentieo by simply clicking on the Send to Teams option in any note or document and specifying the DM or channel along with an optional message. It will immediately be posted in the selected conversation.

What’s Next?

We plan to integrate more actions in our app on Teams, including the ability to create a note from a message in Teams, create an independent note in Teams, and to reply on a note or document posted in Teams to add it as a comment in Sentieo.

We are excited to share this development with you. Start using the integration today to streamline your team’s information sharing. Find out how in the Sentieo Support Center here, or contact us for a free trial.

The post Sentieo & Microsoft Teams: Another Step Towards Seamless Collaboration appeared first on Sentieo.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Kirsten Boer, Director of Client Relations at Sustainalytics to learn more about the primary drivers for ESG and sustainability, Sustainalytics’ ESG risk rating, and the difference between risk and risk management and how this applies to companies across sectors.

There is little doubt that ESG investing is on the rise with iShares Americas estimating it will reach $1 trillion by 2030. Another barometer of growth in the industry is the PRI signatories assets under management. As of 2020, there were 3,200 global signatories representing 100 trillion in USD AUM—a 42% increase since 2018. And expectations are that this momentum and growth will only continue.

From practical to idealistic, drivers and approaches to ESG investing vary widely, but are not mutually exclusive. From regulatory compliance, reputation management, enhancing investment performance, client demand, and finally the desire to create a positive impact there are many drivers for ESG and sustainability. “We’ll often see multiple reasons why an investor wants to consider ESG in their investment practice,” Kristen said. How those drivers influence the approach to investing also varies. Kirsten noted that Sustainalytics sees some investors looking to avoid exposure to certain high-risk ESG areas or controversial business practice while others are looking to integrate ESG throughout their business process, while still others are targeting outcomes by investing in companies with a sustainability mandate. 

So what is the ESG Risk Rating and how does Sustainalytics measure it? Sustainalytics Risk Rating is an assessment of unmanaged ESG risk. They assess it through 1) exposure of a company to ESG risk or vulnerability and 2) how a company is managing that risk. In essence, it’s a mix of high-level signals and detailed research to support that. Higher scores equal higher risk.

As Kirsten noted, “certain issues face inherent risk, even with the strongest policies, programs, and management systems in place. There will always be that degree of vulnerability. It’s that combination of the management gap, the portion of manageable risk that the company is not managing, and the unmanageable risks.” 

She added that “while there are certainly trends—and I think logically they do make sense to us that an oil and gas company is more exposed than a software company to certain ESG risks—there is that ability through the company’s specific nature to the rating to make those distinctions at the exposure level.”  

But exposure is only one half of the assessment, how a company is managing those risks also has an impact on the risk rating. Going one step deeper to compare the management approach to addressing the ESG issues is “where we start to see a meaningful difference in the approach of companies.”

Want the full picture of ESG investing including Sustainalytics approach and how to access their ratings in Sentieo? You can watch the webinar on-demand here.

The post Reviewing ESG Risk and Risk Management with Sustainalytics appeared first on Sentieo.

Sentieo’s Table Explorer, or TableX for short, uses Machine Learning (ML) to identify and chain tables in SEC documents going back years and to stitch every line item carefully. TableX has grown to be a favorite for equity analysts looking to save hours collecting source document data with its easy auditability and visualizations.

If you are new to TableX, please watch the short videos on our blog. We go over the basic TableX functions (chaining various “standard” tables, chaining KPI tables, merging rows, and adjusting for “roll forward” tables). You can also learn about our recently released ML-powered TableX Manager on our blog.

Support for Restatements

With our most recent release, Sentieo V4.3, restated numbers for older periods are now automatically picked up from the latest period document in Table Explorer (and our Excel Plugin). Restated numbers are highlighted in pink in the spreadsheet and document below, and users have the ability to switch restatements on/off at the chain level and the column level through the column header menu.

We’ve put together a short walk through video to show you how restatements show up in Table Explorer.

Support for Unit Changes

We’ve also added support for unit changes in Table Explorer, allowing you to adjust the units when a company changes its units from thousands to millions and vice versa. (Yes, historical numbers will also adjust according to current units.)

In this short video, we show how TSLA changed its units from thousands to millions in Q3 2019.

To learn more about how Sentieo’s research workflow platform can help your team be more productive, please get in touch. 

The post Save Time Building Models with Support for Restatements in Table Explorer appeared first on Sentieo.

For the next few days, we will review Q1 calls across a variety of industries using our machine learning and natural language call transcript application, Smart Summary^TM. Today we will focus on UPS.

We released the first version of Smart Summary last July to rave reviews. This was followed up by an in-depth expansion of many of the machine learning classifications and improved visuals (word clouds, heat maps, and keyword extraction) in our March 2020 Sentieo 4.1 product release. 

Smart Summary fundamentally changes the way our clients read transcripts. While it’s important to listen to high priority calls live, Smart Summary ensures that you do not miss anything in your high priority list, whether you listen live, or not. Further, with Smart Summary you no longer need to read transcripts from your broader coverage universe chronologically. 

Today we will look at the most recent UPS transcript (Q1 2020 was reported on April 28, 2020). We can see that the Smart Summary email came in shortly after the “old way” transcript (don’t worry, we have the full transcript in the Smart Summary too, with our NLP sentiment scoring applied).

The Smart Summary PDF starts off with the word cloud through NLP keyword surfacing on top of the new tearsheet. 

We can see that Covid-related terms are prominently featured, as is Asia (recovering!), recession, and healthcare (big increase in mentions there due to a number of corporate initiatives). We can also see Headwinds and B2C: this immediately alerts us to the product mix headwinds that the company is experiencing (shift to the less profitable B2C). 

The overall sentiment of the call was decidedly negative versus prior quarters. 

We can also see this reflected in the darker color in the ML-based Categories Heatmap. Notice the particularly negative change in the Economic category, as well as the Deflection category, indicating considerable uncertainty. 

The top keywords in the transcript (along with the top keywords in the prior two years) are next: these mirror the word cloud. We can see the mix mentioned above (SMB and B2C), we can see Healthcare, Asia, and of course, Covid.

In the next section, we highlight several categories from the ML output, along with their sentiment scoring. The top category is Covid. In the top five Covid comments, we can immediately see the guidance withdrawal and the unfavorable mix shift language.

In the next category, Business, we see a mix of positive and negative in the top five. While ROIC and the initiatives are positive, we see the decline in U.S. operating income and mix shift (again!) as negatives. 

In the video below, we do a more detailed walkthrough of the emailed Smart Summary along with the full version inside our product.

Stay tuned for more highlights over the next week, and register below for our Q1 2020 Earnings Season Recap webinar on Thursday, May 7.

If you would like to learn more about Sentieo’s ML and NLP capabilities, please get in touch. 

The post UPS: Negative NLP Sentiment, ML Highlights Unfavorable Mix Amid the Covid Crisis; China Growing in March appeared first on Sentieo.

With v4.1 of Sentieo, we released Dashboard Templates to solve this problem. These templates have been built around key investor use cases and sector focuses that our users have found to be impactful. While we understand that these templates might not fully replicate each investor’s ideal workflow, we hope you can use these templates as a starting point towards building your perfect home screen.

To access the Templates, first navigate to Dashboard:

Then select the “Load Template” option at the top right portion of the page and pick the template that you want to try out:

In the rest of this post, we’ll walk you through a few of our favorite Dashboard Templates. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to reach us through our support chat.

Prices, Financials, & Documents

This template is useful for any users who want to track real-time price updates as well as events, news, valuation multiples, and broader market performance:

The bottom half of this template will help you track valuation ratios (both absolute and relative to the S&P), a valuation model, and overall market performance:

For users who use Sentieo for prices and financial data, we also have deeper sector-specific templates, which can be accessed in the “Sector Dashboard” section of the templates menu:

Taking US Energy as an example, you will notice a couple of differences from the template above:

• Sector-specific valuation metrics in the Price Monitor
  • e.g. Energy would have P/E and EV/EBITDA, while a Software template might focus more on EV/Sales)
• Relative valuation and performance charts versus the sector
  • The Energy dashboard would let you track a stock’s P/E Relative to the Energy sector, while the Software dashboard would have EV/Sales relative to Software

Documents & Highlights

We recommend using this template for any users who use Sentieo primarily for documents. In the top part of this Dashboard, you can quickly access key document types: transcripts, broker research, filings, press releases, and presentations.

As you open documents in Dashboard and highlight them, you will see your Document Highlights widget populate with content:

If you also want to incorporate keyword search, try adding the “Saved Search” widget to stay on top of key mentions, like coronavirus:

Notes & Research Management

This template will be most useful for those users that are utilizing Sentieo’s Research Management System (RMS). A few things you can do in this Dashboard:

• Your own internal Price Targets in the Price Monitor
• Team Notes and Activity
• Documents and Broker Research
• Calendars
• Company Theses

Macroeconomic Data

Utilize this Dashboard to track broader market activity and key economic data points. You will find treasury rates, labor market trends, Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion, overall market performance, and much more!

Coronavirus Macro

We released this Dashboard a few weeks ago to help our users compare web & social media mentions of Coronavirus against asset prices. Notice how inversely correlated our tracker of consumer Coronavirus mentions has been to S&P 500 performance:

For more insights on tracking the Coronavirus in Sentieo, please check out our recent blog post Tracking Coronavirus: How Data Can Help Chart the Peak-to-Trough.

The Dashboard is a fully customizable canvas of widgets that can serve any use case that you want to build. Whether you want to track price performance, documents, note taking, or economic data, the Dashboard can help you do it all. Use the new Dashboard Templates today to get started on building your ideal workflow!

Want to learn more? Join us on Tuesday, April 21 for our webinar: V4.1 Dashboard and Plotter Enhancements. Register here.

The post Streamline Your Research Workflow with New Dashboard Templates appeared first on Sentieo.

New Data Sources

Expand your source of insights with more data and documents, including:

• Support for RSS Feeds
• Regulatory content from the Whitehouse, Energy Department, the Energy Information Agency, and USDA
• Private company peer data

Faster Time to Insight

Ensure no insights are missed with an enhanced Smart Summary^TM email report and a new library of dashboard templates for specific use cases, sectors, and our Coronovirus Dashboard.

Improved Research Workflow

Reduce workflow steps and context switching with tighter integration between Sentieo’s Document Search and Notebook functionality, including the ability to tag and comment instantly when reviewing a document.

Login to Sentieo to read the full release notes, contact your Sentieo representative for more details, or subscribe to the Sentieo Blog for more posts on the new release over the next few weeks.

Release Webinar: Dashboard and Plotter Enhancement in V4.1

April 21, 2020 at 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern

Be sure to register for our product training webinar to learn more about dashboard templates and related enhancements in V4.1 with Sentieo VP of Product, Arib Rahman.

Register Now

The post Sentieo 4.1 Release: More Data Sources, Faster Insights, Improved Research Workflow appeared first on Sentieo.