The U.S. Election is on everyone’s minds this week. With voting wrapped up in all U.S. States but counting requiring a few days yet, it’s looking like a very narrow Joe Biden victory. Maybe.
We recorded this video last week on Friday, prior to the US election. Harvey and I talk about why we focus on individual businesses and their results, rather than trying to predict market events. In the case of the U.S. Election, we don’t see either result having a dramatic impact on the portfolio.
Our preference, whatever might be happening in the world, is for businesses that make their own luck.
Take Zebra Technologies as an example. This favourite of our reported quarterly results on election day, smashing broker estimates of its own guidance just three months ago. The company said “demand from large strategic customers is at record levels, driven by trends to digitize and automate workflows due to the pandemic”. Its inventory tracking devices and software are seeing strong demand around the world and pricing has quickly adjusted to compensate shareholders for newly imposed tariffs.
The whole election charade has been so addictive that it’s hard to think about anything else. But we’d be much better off looking for another Zebra.