Snap Inc. (SNAP): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

The One-Time Heart of Shale May Never Boom Again With Dakota Access Shut

(Bloomberg) -- It was once the center of America’s shale boom -- a vast reservoir of crude unleashed by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, turning North Dakota into the second-largest oil producer in the U.S. and helping transform the nation into the world’s largest supplier.These days, the Bakken is looking like anything but a boom. Drilling in the once-prolific shale formation straddling North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada has all but halted -- another victim of the pandemic that sapped fuel demand worldwide. Output is believed to have fallen by as much as half a million barrels a day this year. Even before the virus, drillers there were struggling to compete with fast-improving margins in Texas’s Permian Basin. Now, the looming shutdown of the Dakota Access pipeline that carries more than a third of the region’s oil to market threatens to keep the play from booming ever again.“This court ruling...

Buy Into the Shopify Story for the Long-Term, Says 5-Star Analyst

E-commerce platform Shopify (SHOP) joined the $1,000 per share club last week, symbolically reaching the landmark on Canada Day. The Ottawa-based company has delivered a strong performance in 2020, with shares up by a remarkable 159% year-to-date. Given this impressive rally, should investors reduce exposure to the e-commerce highflyer?No, is the succinct answer from Baird analyst Colin Sebastian.While the lofty valuation is “still the biggest investor pushback,” the 5-star analyst believes there still remains a large untapped TAM (total addressable market) that Shopify has yet to penetrate.Sebastian said, “Shopify has made our list of favorite stocks each year since initiating coverage in early 2016. In our view, there are scarce few (if any) public software companies as closely tied to the enormous e-commerce share shift, with an established leadership position, and world-class product and engineering. Moreover, we see multiple incremental revenue drivers ahead from new paid services, new partnerships (e.g., WMT)...