World Cup moneyball ?

It’s kick-off time for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. But off the pitch the experts are split on trying to predict a winner. ??

Lloyds Banking Group (LYG) has correctly predicted two of the last three World Cup winners and says that this year England is the team to back for World Cup glory. While it’s great to see big banks predicting something other than rampant inflation this year, Lloyds has nothing on the incredible hattrick prediction performance by Electronic Arts (EA). EA has correctly picked the last three World Cup winners. So, who’s EA backing this year? After simulating all 64 matches, EA says Argentina, led by the GOAT Lionel Messi, will likely come out on top. Vamos, vamos, Argentina!? ??

The winning team is set to score a cool US$42 million, while the runners-up will be ballers with US$30 million. ?? Still, that’s just a fraction of the outrageous US$300 billion Qatar is estimated to have spent on stadiums, infrastructure and entire cities to host the World Cup.

Perhaps the biggest winners last week though were investors in English Premier club Manchester United (MANU). Just hours after the club announced that red devil Cristiano Ronaldo would hand back his horns and leave the club, the company revealed they were looking at ‘strategic alternatives’ for the club, including a potential sale.

That was met with wild cheers from fans and investors alike. Manchester United is publicly listed, but effectively controlled by an American family called the Glazers. The Glazers got off-side with fans after loading the company up with debt, taking dividends for themselves and failing to deliver a trophy since 2017. Just how keen are Man U fans to see the Glazers get the boot? Since the news, Man U’s share price has sailed more than +60%. Who could have predicted that? ??

Bend it like Buffett ??

RIP Mr Goxx. ?? The crypto-trading Hamster that almost upstaged Warren Buffett didn’t live long enough to witness the fall of crypto, but at aged 92, Buffett is still showing why he is one of the greatest investors of all time.?

After patiently sitting on the sidelines during the investing fever-pitch of 2021, Buffett’s put on an absolute masterclass on long-term investing. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) shares are up 5% so far in 2022, significantly ahead of the -16% fall of the S&P 500 Vanguard ETF (VOO). How did Buffett bend Berkshire so well? ? By doing what Buffett does best! Biding his time and pouncing on companies he can hold for years or decades to come.

Despite a little moaning about a lack of good investments earlier this year and spending tens of billions of dollars on Berkshire’s own shares, Berkshire Hathaway built up a monstrous US$146.7 billion cash pile by the start of 2022. ?? Then, as share markets took a dive, Buffett went shopping with a vengeance. Berkshire’s 2022 shopping spree saw the company spend US$66 billion in the first nine months of 2022. Half of that was spent on energy companies, building a 20% stake in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and a big investment in Chevron (CVX).?

Buffett also slide-tackled into tech with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), computing icon HP (HPQ) and Top Gun producer Paramount Global (PARA). Meanwhile, Berkshire put the stock buybacks on the bench for the first three quarters of 2022, spending just $5.25 billion.

If Berkshire's positive performance can hold through December, it will likely help to keep up Buffett’s track record of compounding returns at almost double the return of the S&P 500 (including dividends) over the last 57 years. So much for being washed up! ??

Ticketmaster’s ticketing swift

Swifties are seeing red and the US Senate’s taken swift action. Nope, not against the taxis snaking outside your concert venue price gouging your ride home. ?????? But the alleged scalper-friendly folk who dominate US event ticket sales: Ticketmaster.

Live Nation Entertainment (LYV) owns the venue and event ticketing company, and they’ve been accused of having no incentive to make their ‘horrible’ customer experience any less horrible. ?? Senator Amy Klobuchar, who’s leading the anti-competitiveness hearing, says Ticketmaster’s near-monopoly means they don’t ‘face any pressure to continually innovate and improve’.?

The botched Taylor Swift ticket rollout and Ticketmaster’s bot-blaming apology has left bad blood. ?? Tay-Tay wasn’t ready to shake it off, and expressed her delicate dismay in the socials at her Eras Tour ticket-issuing company - one that controls more than 80 percent of major concert venues in America. A total 3.5 billion system requests resulted in just 2.4 million tickets issued through Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform, for Capital One cardholders (COF), and Ashton Kutcher-backed SeatGeek, for the 52 show performances. ???

While in 2018, Ticketmaster vehemently denied ‘secret deals’ with scalpers using Trade Desk (TTD) software - which allowed resellers to jump on ticket exchanges like eBay-owned (EBAY) StubHub - thousands of T-Swiz tickets were quickly listed on the marketplace for thousands of dollars, some cracking more than US$30,000 each. Karma hasn’t hit Ticketmaster though, which reported revenue increases this November following a record summer with 44 million fans attending 11,000 concerts in nearly 50 countries.

Ticketmaster courted controversy in August too with Springsteen’s boomer fans experiencing the brunt of ‘dynamic pricing’, with US$400 tickets surging to US$5,000 based on demand. But should Swifties leave artists like T-Swizzle off the hook? Dynamic pricing is set by promoters and the artists’ teams. ??

While Kiwi partiers heading to New Year’s RNV might not have been caught in Live Nation owned-Moshtix’s money machine, is it time to #breakupticketmaster? ??

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