When a User turned Investor

If Earth is Gods’ canvas, he took a white brush and painted the canvas blank to draw a fresh picture anew, a much better version of the former.

‘It all started at a fish market in Wuhan’- this is going to be key prologue to numerous stories awaiting coverage when shutters rise. This Great Lockdown, as IMF terms it, raised curtains to unorthodox things, concepts and ideas. Though we could always play video games, but couldn’t share same virtual space with our friend other side, though we could binge weekends on Netflix, but couldn’t laugh together to puns or challenge each other to predict the climax real time.

What we see today are just some use case examples of how limitless technology is, things once adopted by users and businesses can completely reshape and reskill lifestyle. It has been a shock to say the least. With the advent of AI and Big Data, we might see new digital security solutions in the form of Threat Intelligence, which improvises your security patches depending on the search history and digital presence, which is typically rationing of the digital security services you bought will be optimally spread to protect you from malware and virus.

What falls common to future business plans is the indispensable thread to connect us all, even though miles away, the INTERNET, which sometimes is confused for technology. Well, then how about packing our bags and heading for a treasure hunt skimming through the tech centers of the world.

VENTURE, a fictitious character, is a gaming and tech geek. He plans a virtual trip to explore new trends and disruptive technologies around the world. He connects with his friends over Zoom Conference to decide upon destinations. Meanwhile they are all engaged in a cloud gaming challenge over Activision Blizzard platform. Since, he and his friends believe that they might discover some of the most unique and innovative business plans, they fear digital compromise of their conversations, and thus one of them urge to have firewalls and phishing barriers, and who better than Akamai Technologies, Inc (The Adobe of Startups) to do that. And when their boss calls, they can quickly switch to their office portals using Citrix Systems.

Let alone fiction, even our daily life amidst the lockdown is no less than gaming, Over the Top Streaming (OTT) and remote work. So lets throw some light, on the names highlighted above.

Activision Blizzard Inc. - A Drastic increase in online services and content consumption will bolster Cloud Gaming Revenues to US$4.5 Billion by 2024. If the gaming industry can keep up with the rising playtime and concurrent users, it might see phenomenal growth and applicability in the coming years. These companies aren’t just engaged in making interactive games, but are also associated with crisis management and aviation institutes to make best in class simulation scenarios. There is huge innovation underway to make gaming more accessible and device free, in some years we might not even need consoles and extravagant hardware.

Akamai Technologies, Inc- When the tide is fast and high, boats travel miles without fuel. Such is the velocity of data exchange lately, and thus malware or bug can multiply rapidly. Akamai's content delivery network is one of the world's largest distributed computing platforms, responsible for serving between 15% and 30% of all web traffic. They enable the so called ‘Digital Detox ‘for our highly connected devices.

Citrix Systems, Inc.- Citrix Systems, Inc. provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service, and cloud computing technologies. Remote work facilities are the next alternative to flexible lease and private areas in co working spaces. Over the last 2 months Citrix has quadrupled its user base, with smaller companies opting to work even if remotely. Now would be the time to push extra dollars and diversify its product offerings.

But how about if we could also ride the profit story, and be a user and an investor too. Lets check how these companies fared in the capital markets, since portfolio managers foresaw and discounted this trend way early enough to bad stellar returns in turbulent times.

Here is some interesting number crunching an Indian investor could reap from the market rout. Given the below assumptions:

1. No borrowing cost or brokerages (friction-less market) in either jurisdictions.

2. Data range is from 19th Feb to 3rd April.

3. Though a bit unrealistic, but we entered at the peak (19th Feb) and sold on 3rd April.

Nifty lost 33 percent from 19th Feb to 3rd April. SPX trenched 26 percent over the same period. While USDINR cross rate rose 6 percent over the same period. Thus, dollar investments funded in INR worked profitable.