Monday
I’m looking forward to this week in particular as I’m off to America for a research trip. I’m heading to Nashville Tennessee for the first time; it’s always interesting to discover somewhere new. Most of the research trips and conferences happen on either the east or west coast, but whenever I can I like to see a bit of the middle, the real America. The schedule is a bus tour to do site visits with six companies followed by the Piper Sandler Growth Frontiers Conference over the next two days. The conference focuses on mid-cap technology and consumer companies and will be a great opportunity to catch up with existing holdings and find new ideas. I’m flying from Heathrow, so my first challenge is getting there when there’s a tube strike. Fortunately, my wife drops me at the airport and I’m on my way.
The jet lag is always less bad flying to the States than coming home. It’s early evening when we land, and Nashville airport is a dream. Small, efficient and I’m in town in 20 minutes. I meet up with the team that’s running the conference for a quick dinner and then back to the hotel to try and get some sleep.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning brings a day of visiting companies, six in total. I always find it very useful to visit companies in their own back yard. It’s great to see operations up close and talk to the people who are doing the day-to-day work. Our first stop is Floor N’ Décor, a flooring specialist. This is of interest to me as this company is disrupting the flooring and tile category which has been dominated by Home Depot and Lowes for a long time. We get a full store tour and the team presents very well. This is particularly good timing as it looks like the housing sector may be about to recover. Definitely a name to do some more work on.
The other companies we visit are a mix of retailers and restaurant companies, the pick of which were Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a deep discount retailer and First Watch Restaurant Group which is a breakfast and lunch concept that is growing rapidly. We continue discussions with the CEO and his team over lunch in one of their brand new restaurants that had opened that week. This is a chain that regularly has queues of keen diners waiting round the block. The US consumer is alive and well and this company is taking market share.
Wednesday
Day one of the conference, which kicks off with two panel discussions. The first on the technology sector and the second about market structure and strategy. Then into company meetings for the rest of the day. The conference focuses on tech and consumer companies with CEOs and CFOs presenting. The message is bullish, particularly from the tech companies who all felt we are in the very early stages of the AI revolution, which is in line with our thoughts about the sector. Technology remains our biggest weighting in the fund.
Thursday
The morning starts with an interesting panel discussion about trends among teenagers. Piper Sandler, the investment bank that runs the conference, has run a teen survey for many years and it’s an interesting look into what young people care about. This covers trends in all areas from social media preferences to fashion to food and beverage and we had a panel of seven teenagers telling us how they live their lives. Instagram winning in social media and athleisure and Nike losing in apparel was one interesting take, which chimes with the relative stock price performance of Meta, outperforming, and Nike, underperforming.
More meetings round out the rest of the day, and the tone is bullish from management teams. One thing I have noticed is that quite a lot of the investors I’ve met are much less bullish than management teams. It’s unusual to have markets at all-time highs with muted sentiment from investors. We have seen this in the investor survey data too and I take this very positively. It’s much better to have sceptical investors than overtly bullish ones, as this implies there is much further to go in markets, at least from a sentiment point of view.
My flight home leaves at 9:30pm and so there are a few hours to spare before heading to the airport. Downtown Nashville is a fun place to while away some time as there is live music everywhere and a really great atmosphere. Nashville is one of the fastest growing cities in America and there is an upbeat feeling about the place.
Friday
The flight home is drama free and fortunately the tubes are back running again, so I’m home from the airport quite quickly. Time to mull over the key takeaways from a successful trip.
1) The consumer is still in good shape. There has been some inflation, eating out still isn’t cheap, but consumers in general are doing fine. Tariffs seem to have been dealt with and haven’t been too much of a problem.
2) We are still early in the AI story. There is much more to come in terms of innovation and use cases.
3) America is still the place to be in terms of the breadth of companies to invest in and the opportunity set. Innovation and deep capital markets are the perpetual advantage, and we look to America’s future with confidence.
We have a very collegiate culture at Tyndall, and the intelligence gathered during my week will provide food for thought, not just for my fund, but for my colleagues across our funds, private client wealth management and financial adviser Partnerships propositions.
Saturday
I’m at that stage in life when many of my friends are turning 50. So after a decent lie-in to take care of the jet lag, I’m off to Wiltshire for a double header 50th birthday. It’s great to catch up with old friends, most of whom I’ve known since university days, some 30 years ago.
Sunday
Sunday is a day to relax with the family. We walk the dog and enjoy what’s left of the decent weather. The children are busy with sporting activities and UCAS forms so there’s plenty for me to catch up on. Sunday evening is when I do some prep work for the coming week; there is a Fed decision on Wednesday and there will be plenty of corporate news coming out of investment conference season. Markets are performing well and given the backdrop this is likely to continue in my view.
