Amplifier Advisors

Welcome to the team Zach Gurd, we are excited for your fall Co-op

Welcome to the team Martin Cox, excited to have you onboard.

Q: When should startups be profitable 🤔 A(2021): Grow first, profits later 📈 A(2024): As soon as possible ⏳ Higher interest rates makes it more expensive for investors to lend you money. 2024 offers a tale of two startups - those who are profitable and those who are not. Investors today are writing term sheets rewarding businesses who've achieved breakeven and penalizing those who have not. If you work at a startup, focus your efforts on making your business increasingly profitable. The larger your company, the more important this is. If your company isn't focused on driving profitability in 2024, find one who is.

Over the past month, semiconductor companies, which play a crucial role in the global economy, have faced significant challenges to investor expectations. Here is a summary: NVDA - Down 16% from ATH LSCC - Down 49% from ATH SMCI - Down 64% from ATH INTC - Down 61% from ATH Semiconductors are crucial to the economy, and these companies are solid, but their valuations are not. This has been a challenge ever since the first tulips traded on exchanges in the Netherlands. Asset classes or industries get on unsustainable investor expectation treadmills. It is a human blind spot. We assume that because a company/asset is doing well, it will continue to do well, and our expectations grow unsustainably. Stocks can only run so fast before being unable to keep up with the speed investors demand. The only thing that changed here was that expectations diverged far from reality. We believe these companies will normalize at a median of 25-30 P/E, still above the long-run average of 15x for the S&P. There is still significant growth potential, albeit less than what investors have priced into expectations; most still trade higher multiples in the 40-60x+ range. The bottom line is that the higher the multiple, be it P/E, EV/EBITDA(adjusted), or any other ratio, the more sensitive an asset is to a change in the environment or investor expectations. The Fed's response to these market conditions will likely not be a game-changer; any rate cuts are priced in, and their mandate is to provide stability in inflation and labour markets, not to prop up heated asset classes; remember the Volcker Era. With the S&P 500's long-run average at 15x~ P/E and our current position at ~28x, the environment is showing signs of weakness. I anticipate that market volatility will become the norm, not the exception. This earnings season is a wake-up call, signalling that we may be in late in the economic cycle, with earnings and growth likely facing headwinds as the economic environment softens. Amplifier Capital Roland Filler Michael Tahirovic Carson Boettinger Rifat Islam Martin Cox Zach Gurd

I've failed more times than I can remember, but that's good. The surface area of opportunity is a function of difficulty, network, and persistence. If you don't find yourself failing, try something more complex. It probably means you are more intelligent and capable than you think. Failure is a natural part of growth. I have practiced Muay Thai for over a decade, and part of the conditioning is repeated micro failure in the shins. The human body is a miracle; by creating micro fractures over the years, people have reinforced their shins to be as strong as steel. I think failure as an entrepreneur has a similar effect; to have steel in your conviction, you have to fail to grow and reinforce your ability to believe in yourself. In the words of Thomas Wayne, “We fall so we can learn to get back up.” Stop being afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid, on the other side of fear is the opportunity to grow. Share some of the lessons failure has taught you 👇 #faliure #success #grit #resolve #conviction Roland Filler Amplifier Capital Carson Boettinger Mitchell Bergin Michael Tahirovic

Meet our second intern of our summer class, Carson Boettinger He is a Fourth-Year Economics at Lazaridis School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University pursing a minor in Mathmatics and a specialization research. At Amplifier Capital, he developed various machine learning models, created investor presentations, wrote articles and developed a financial statement scraper, and produced valuable Macro models and views. We are happy to announce that after he graduates, he will be joining the fund full time. #intern #fulltime #macro #investing #fund

As the summer comes to a close we would like to introduce Michael Tahirovic our pioneering Co-op intern. Currently a third-year student at Wilfrid Laurier University, Michael is melding the worlds of Business and Computer Science in his studies. During his tenure at Amplifier Capital, Michael distinguished himself as an investment analyst. His contributions included crafting investor presentations, developing software solutions, and designing a bespoke enterprise valuation model. As Michael’s internship draws to a close and he prepares to return to his academic pursuits, we reflect on the immense value he brought to our team. It’s been an absolute delight having him with us, and we’re eager to see him return for another Co-op in the future. Roland Filler Carson Boettinger Alexander N. De Jäger Mitchell Bergin Brad Ross #intern #Coop #finance #stocks #learning

Excited to see some much-needed innovation in neurosurgery; in a field where a good outcome includes mild short-term or long-term disability, non-invasive techniques have good promise. Amplifier Capital #medicine #neurosurgery #surgery #innovation #medtech

Amplifier Capital is at the Blockchain Futurist Conference; if you are around, happy to say hello! Found one hell of a guitar maker on the floor! Roland Filler Carson Boettinger Michael Tahirovic #blockchain #crypto #fintech

We made this post 2 weeks ago when the VIX was around 15; what a difference two weeks can make. The VIX is up 200%+ since that time. Amplifier Capital continues to hold a long thesis on increasingly volatile market conditions. The underlying narrative of a soft landing was always a fool's gambit. There are numerous structural issues with most developed economies. Years of low interest rate borrowing have led to substantially increased government and corporate balance sheets. Central bankers may cut rates, but it is our view that it is too little too late. As Milton Friedman once said, "There is no free lunch"; years of inflationary fiscal and monetary policy have created numerous moral hazards across most large economies, and it is impossible to tell what the realized cost of this will be in the long run. We see it as a rock and a hard place: drop rates too soon, and let inflation run away; and even if inflation does not run away, the problem continues to compound because somewhere along the way, we got the idea that borrowing has no cost. If we kick the can down the road, in 10 years, the debt question will be catastrophic. If they hold rates, it will cripple a host of zombie companies and governments that are levered to the hilt, and who are borrowing far beyond any reasonable means or hope of paying back debt investors. We live in a world of two economies, the economy that exists in synthetic assets like crypto and the stock market, and the economy that exists for the majority of people alive; the delta between the two has deviated at an eye-watering pace in this last decade. The pages of history are full of examples of what tends to happen when the perception of the economy in financial markets is wholly mismatched with the reality of them. I am Dutch; I know a thing or two about tulip valuation. Carson Boettinger Roland Filler Lijia H. Kristina Kulikow Michael Tahirovic Brad Ross Hugh D. MacPhie Ray Dalio Lazaridis School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University #VIX #SPY #Debt #Cooked #short #long #stocks #markets #Leverage #inflation #HardLanding