Richard Dobatse, a Navy medic in San Diego, dabbled infrequently in stock trading. But his behavior changed in 2017 when he signed up for Robinhood, a trading app that made buying and selling stocks simple and seemingly free.
Mr. Dobatse, now 32, said he had been charmed by Robinhood’s one-click trading, easy access to complex investment products, and features like falling confetti and emoji-filled phone notifications that made it feel like a game. After funding his account with $15,000 in credit card advances, he began spending more time on the app.
As he repeatedly lost money, Mr. Dobatse took out two $30,000 home equity loans so he could buy and sell more speculative stocks and options, hoping to pay off his debts. His account value shot above $1 million this year — but almost all of that recently disappeared. This week, his balance was $6,956.
“When he is doing his trading, he won’t want to eat,” said his wife, Tashika Dobatse, with whom he has three children. “He would have nightmares.”
Millions of young Americans have begun investing in recent years through Robinhood, which was founded in 2013 with a sales pitch of no trading fees or account minimums. The ease of trading has turned it into a cultural phenomenon and a Silicon Valley darling, with the start-up climbing to an $8.3 billion valuation. It has been one of the tech industry’s biggest growth stories in the recent market turmoil.
But at least part of Robinhood’s success appears to have been built on a Silicon Valley playbook of behavioral nudges and push notifications, which has drawn inexperienced investors into the riskiest trading, according to an analysis of industry data and legal filings, as well as interviews with nine current and former Robinhood employees and more than a dozen customers. And the more that customers engaged in such behavior, the better it was for the company, the data shows.
Thanks for reading The Times. Subscribe to The Times More than at any other retail brokerage firm, Robinhood’s users trade the riskiest products and at the fastest pace, according to an analysis of new filings from nine brokerage firms by the research firm Alphacution for The New York Times.
In the first three months of 2020, Robinhood users traded nine times as many shares as E-Trade customers, and 40 times as many shares as Charles Schwab customers, per dollar in the average customer account in the most recent quarter. They also bought and sold 88 times as many risky options contracts as Schwab customers, relative to the average account size, according to the analysis.
The more often small investors trade stocks, the worse their returns are likely to be, studies have shown. The returns are even worse when they get involved with options, research has found.
This kind of trading, where a few minutes can mean the difference between winning and losing, was particularly hazardous on Robinhood because the firm has experienced an unusual number of technology issues, public records show. Some Robinhood employees, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, said the company failed to provide adequate guardrails and technology to support its customers.
Those dangers came into focus last month when Alex Kearns, 20, a college student in Nebraska, killed himself after he logged into the app and saw that his balance had dropped to negative $730,000. The figure was high partly because of some incomplete trades.
“There was no intention to be assigned this much and take this much risk,” Mr. Kearns wrote in his suicide note, which a family member posted on Twitter.
Like Mr. Kearns, Robinhood’s average customer is young and lacks investing know-how. The average age is 31, the company said, and half of its customers had never invested before.
Some have visited Robinhood’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., in recent years to confront the staff about their losses, said four employees who witnessed the incidents. This year, they said, the start-up installed bulletproof glass at the front entrance.
“They encourage people to go from training wheels to driving motorcycles,” Scott Smith, who tracks brokerage firms at the financial consulting firm Cerulli, said of Robinhood. “Over the long term, it’s like trying to beat the casino.”
At the core of Robinhood’s business is an incentive to encourage more trading. It does not charge fees for trading, but it is still paid more if its customers trade more.
That’s because it makes money through a complex practice known as “payment for order flow.” Each time a Robinhood customer trades, Wall Street firms actually buy or sell the shares and determine what price the customer gets. These firms pay Robinhood for the right to do this, because they then engage in a form of arbitrage by trying to buy or sell the stock for a profit over what they give the Robinhood customer.
This practice is not new, and retail brokers such as E-Trade and Schwab also do it. But Robinhood makes significantly more than they do for each stock share and options contract sent to the professional trading firms, the filings show.
For each share of stock traded, Robinhood made four to 15 times more than Schwab in the most recent quarter, according to the filings. In total, Robinhood got $18,955 from the trading firms for every dollar in the average customer account, while Schwab made $195, the Alphacution analysis shows. Industry experts said this was most likely because the trading firms believed they could score the easiest profits from Robinhood customers.
Vlad Tenev, a founder and co-chief executive of Robinhood, said in an interview that even with some of its customers losing money, young Americans risked greater losses by not investing in stocks at all. Not participating in the markets “ultimately contributed to the sort of the massive inequalities that we’re seeing in society,” he said.
Mr. Tenev said only 12 percent of the traders active on Robinhood each month used options, which allow people to bet on where the price of a specific stock will be on a specific day and multiply that by 100. He said the company had added educational content on how to invest safely.
He declined to comment on why Robinhood makes more than its competitors from the Wall Street firms. The company also declined to comment on Mr. Dobatse or provide data on its customers’ performance.
Robinhood does not force people to trade, of course. But its success at getting them do so has been highlighted internally. In June, the actor Ashton Kutcher, who has invested in Robinhood, attended one of the company’s weekly staff meetings on Zoom and celebrated its success by comparing it to gambling websites, said three people who were on the call.
Mr. Kutcher said in a statement that his comment “was not intended to be a comparison of business models nor the experience Robinhood provides its customers” and that it referred “to the current growth metrics.” He added that he was “absolutely not insinuating that Robinhood was a gambling platform.”
ImageRobinhood’s co-founders and co-chief executives, Baiju Bhatt, left, and Vlad Tenev, created the company to make investing accessible to everyone. Robinhood’s co-founders and co-chief executives, Baiju Bhatt, left, and Vlad Tenev, created the company to make investing accessible to everyone.Credit...via Reuters Robinhood was founded by Mr. Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, two children of immigrants who met at Stanford University in 2005. After teaming up on several ventures, including a high-speed trading firm, they were inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement to create a company that would make finance more accessible, they said. They named the start-up Robinhood after the English outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.
Robinhood eliminated trading fees while most brokerage firms charged $10 or more for a trade. It also added features to make investing more like a game. New members were given a free share of stock, but only after they scratched off images that looked like a lottery ticket.
The app is simple to use. The home screen has a list of trendy stocks. If a customer touches one of them, a green button pops up with the word “trade,” skipping many of the steps that other firms require.
Robinhood initially offered only stock trading. Over time, it added options trading and margin loans, which make it possible to turbocharge investment gains — and to supersize losses.
The app advertises options with the tagline “quick, straightforward & free.” Customers who want to trade options answer just a few multiple-choice questions. Beginners are legally barred from trading options, but those who click that they have no investing experience are coached by the app on how to change the answer to “not much” experience. Then people can immediately begin trading.
Before Robinhood added options trading in 2017, Mr. Bhatt scoffed at the idea that the company was letting investors take uninformed risks.
“The best thing we can say to those people is ‘Just do it,’” he told Business Insider at the time.
In May, Robinhood said it had 13 million accounts, up from 10 million at the end of 2019. Schwab said it had 12.7 million brokerage accounts in its latest filings; E-Trade reported 5.5 million.
That growth has kept the money flowing in from venture capitalists. Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates are among those that have poured $1.3 billion into Robinhood. In May, the company received a fresh $280 million.
“Robinhood has made the financial markets accessible to the masses and, in turn, revolutionized the decades-old brokerage industry,” Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia, said after last month’s fund-raising.
Image Robinhood shows users that its options trading is free of commissions. Robinhood shows users that its options trading is free of commissions. Mr. Tenev has said Robinhood has invested in the best technology in the industry. But the risks of trading through the app have been compounded by its tech glitches.
In 2018, Robinhood released software that accidentally reversed the direction of options trades, giving customers the opposite outcome from what they expected. Last year, it mistakenly allowed people to borrow infinite money to multiply their bets, leading to some enormous gains and losses.
Robinhood’s website has also gone down more often than those of its rivals — 47 times since March for Robinhood and 10 times for Schwab — according to a Times analysis of data from Downdetector.com, which tracks website reliability. In March, the site was down for almost two days, just as stock prices were gyrating because of the coronavirus pandemic. Robinhood’s customers were unable to make trades to blunt the damage to their accounts.
Four Robinhood employees, who declined to be identified, said the outage was rooted in issues with the company’s phone app and servers. They said the start-up had underinvested in technology and moved too quickly rather than carefully.
Mr. Tenev said he could not talk about the outage beyond a company blog post that said it was “not acceptable.” Robinhood had recently made new technology investments, he said.
Plaintiffs who have sued over the outage said Robinhood had done little to respond to their losses. Unlike other brokers, the company has no phone number for customers to call.
Mr. Dobatse suffered his biggest losses in the March outage — $860,000, his records show. Robinhood did not respond to his emails, he said, adding that he planned to take his case to financial regulators for arbitration.
“They make it so easy for people that don’t know anything about stocks,” he said. “Then you go there and you start to lose money.”
Gerry Conway (writer, Batman and Detective Comics, 1981-1983): I always felt that Batman worked really well with a sidekick like Robin. My interest in the character was the version of Batman as a detective, the version of Batman as a guardian of Gotham. This was prior, I believe, to the deep-dive into the “dark knight” kind of concept of Batman, so, for that end, the idea of a younger sidekick who could bring out a little more levity in the character seemed useful. But Dick Grayson as a character had grown into a young adult and was integral to the Teen Titans series, and had his own life and his own storylines that were developing separately from Batman, and [he] couldn’t really play that secondary role that I was interested in exploring. [1]Todd was introduced as the son of two acrobats who had been murdered by Batman's enemy Killer Croc, in a striking similarity to Dick Grayson's origin written forty years prior. Todd would officially become the new Robin in Batman #368, published February 1984, and would continue to go on adventures (written by Conway and then by Doug Moench) with Batman until 1986's Batman #400. During this period, he's probably best remembered for a. being involved in a custody battle between Batman and a vampire, and b. getting the drop on Mongul in the classic Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything" by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons.
O’Neil: There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him. [1]In keeping with the desire for a darker, edgier Dark Knight (it was the 1980s, after all), this version of Batman debuted without a Robin by his side. Dick Grayson was still Nightwing, but Jason Todd was nowhere to be seen. This darker interpretation of Batman was only solidified once Frank Miller put his touch on the franchise with "Batman: Year One" in Batman #404-407, and the standalone graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, the impact of which cannot be understated.
The Dark Knight Returns was a pivotal moment in the formation of what we would consider a recognizably “modern” incarnation of Batman, someone who is brooding and dark, a loner who isolates himself from society to obsessively carry out his one man crusade by any brutally violent means necessary. It was also an important milestone for comics a medium when it landed on top of the Young Adult Hardcover New York Times bestsellers list—a feat it only qualified for thanks to its release as a trade paperback in bookstores. For the first time, mainstream audiences were zeroing in on Batman, and not because of a popular TV show or serialized movies, but because of a comic book. 2Immediately following "Year One," O'Neil asked writer Max Allan Collins to reintroduce Jason Todd as Robin into the continuity, in a storyline titled "Batman: The New Adventures" starting in Batman #408. The new Todd was a delinquent orphan, caught by Batman when he tried to steal the tires from the Batmobile and taken in and trained to be the new Robin.
Starlin: In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [1]He had also tried to have Todd killed beforehand, of AIDS:
Well, I always thought that the whole idea of a kid side-kick was sheer insanity. So when I started writing Batman, I immediately started lobbying to kill off Robin. At one point DC had this AIDS book they wanted to do. They sent around memos to everybody saying “What character do you think we should, you know, have him get AIDS and do this dramatic thing” and they never ended up doing this project. I kept sending them things saying “Oh, do Robin! Do Robin!”And Denny O’Neill said “We can’t kill Robin off”. [4]
Jenette Kahn (publisher, DC Comics, 1976-1989; president, 1981-2003; editor-in-chief, 1989-2003) : Many of our readers were unhappy with Jason Todd. We weren’t certain why or how widespread the discontent was, but we wanted to address it. Rather than autocratically write Jason out of the comics and bring in a new Robin, we thought we’d let our readers weigh in. [1]O'Neil and his team of editors brainstormed how they could remove Jason from the story, and the answer was clear: kill him, just as Starlin had suggested time and time again. Recalling the success of a 1982 Saturday Night Live sketch in which Eddie Murphy let viewers vote via phone on whether he would cook or spare a live lobester, O'Neil proposed a similar system to Kahn, who loved the idea.
"Dear Denny, I heard some of what you are planning for "A Death In the Family" story line, including the phone-in number wrinkle, and I don't want to take any chances whatsoever. Kill him. Your pal, Rich Kreiner."From 9:00 in the morning on Thursday, September 15, 1988 until 8:00 in the evening on Friday, September 16, fans could call in to either of the two numbers for fifty cents a call and cast their vote. In the end, the votes were tallied: 5,271 voted for Todd to survive, and 5,343 voted for him to die. By a margin of 72 votes, Robin died in the pages of Batman #428, beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker. The image of Batman cradling Robin's dead body became immediately iconic.
O’Neil: I spent three days doing nothing but talking on the radio. I thought it would get us some ink here and there and maybe a couple of radio interviews. I had no idea—nor did anyone else—it would have the effect it did. Peggy [May], our publicity person, finally just said, “Stop, no more, we can’t do anymore,” or I would probably still be talking. She also nixed any television appearances. At the time, I wondered about that but now I am very glad she did, because there was a nasty backlash and I came to be very grateful that people could not associate my face with the guy who killed Robin. [1]Internally at DC, there were suspicions that the vote had been rigged in some fashion.
O'Neil: "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the difference." [5]But regardless of whether it was or not, Jason Todd was dead, and he would remain dead for as long as O'Neil stayed at DC - long enough for the phrase to be coined: "nobody in comics stays dead except for Uncle Ben, Bucky, and Jason Todd." But he wouldn't remain dead forever.
![]() | Hi, submitted by Dr_Sargunz to CanadianInvestor [link] [comments] This is my first attempt at writing a DD report. I hope it makes sense. Just a few cautionary words:
Happy reading! Highlights
IntroductionToromont Industries Ltd. (TSE:TIH) provides specialized equipment in Canada and the United States. The Company operates two business segments: The Equipment Group and CIMCO. The Equipment Group supplies specialized mobile equipment and industrial engines for Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT). Customers for this business segment vary from infrastructure contractors, residential and commercial contractors, mining companies, forestry companies, pulp and paper producers, general contractors, utilities, municipalities, marine companies, waste handling companies, and agricultural enterprises. CIMCO offers design, engineering, fabrication, and installation of industrial and recreational refrigeration systems.The Company was founded in 1961 and operates out of Concord, Ontario. As at December 31, 2019, Toromont employed over 6,500 people in more than 150 locations across central/eastern Canada and the upper eastern United States. The primary objective of the Company is to build shareholder value through sustainable and profitable growth, supported by a strong financial foundation. Description of the 2 Main Business Segments
ManagementCEO, Scott J. Medhurst has been with the company since 1988. He was appointed President of Toromont CAT in 2004 and he came into his current position as President and CEO in 2012. He is a graduate of Toromont’s Management Trainee Program.CFO, Mike McMillan joined the executive team in March of 2020. His predecessor, Paul Jewer is retiring this year and has been working with McMillan during the transition period. VP and COO, Michael Chuddy has been with Toromont since 1995. On average, leaders have 29 years of business experience and have served at Toromont for 19 years. Seeing long tenures, good stock performance, excellent business planning and execution is usually a sign of strong leadership. In addition, insiders hold more than 3% (~$175 million) of the company’s outstanding shares. Medhurst owns more than 170 thousand shares, Chuddy owns just under 100 thousand shares and the former CEO and current Independent Chairman of Board of Directors, Robert Ogilvie owns more than 2 million shares, making him the 4th largest stockholder. High insider ownership typically signals confidence in a company's prospects. Compare this to Toromont’s main Canadian competitor, Finning, where insiders own less than 0.4% ($12 million) of the company (this number varies depending on where you look, I just took the highest one I found). Recently insiders have been selling stock (Figure 1). I cannot speak to the reasons why insiders are selling but the remaining position owned by the insider is sizable and demonstrates that the executive still has confidence in the company. Some of the reasons insiders sell are: they don't believe in the company’s future, they need money for personal use, they are rebalancing their portfolio, among others. Figure 1: Buy and selling activity of insiders (the data is from MarketBeat, so take that for what it's worth). On a somewhat unrelated but still related note, 50% of Toromont employees are also shareholders. Growth StrategiesToromont has five growth strategies (expand markets, strengthen product support, broaden product offerings, invest in resources, and maintain a strong financial position). I chose to focus on the following two strategies, as they seemed most prevalent.
Growth Through AcquisitionRapid growth in this industry is generally driven through acquisitions. Toromont has gone through multiple acquisitions since the 90’s:
This acquisition allowed Toromont to make headway into the Quebec, Western Labrador, and Maritime markets, as Hewitt was the authorized Caterpillar dealer of these regions. Hewitt was also the Caterpillar lift truck dealer of Quebec and most of Ontario and the MaK marine engine dealer for Québec, the Maritimes, and the Eastern seaboard of the United States (from Maine to Virginia). Toromont had total assets of $1.51 billion before the acquisition, the acquisition added $1.024 billion in assets, nearly doubling the balance sheet (look at Figure 2 for more details about the acquisition). Figure 2: (all numbers are in thousands) The final allocation of the purchase price was as of Dec 31, 2018, Note 25 of 2018 Annual Report. $1.024 billion was added to the Toromont’s B/S Large acquisitions like this one can be the downfall of a company. Here are some of the risks highlighted by management at the time of the acquisition:
The result of the acquisition and Hewitt’s integration with Toromont’s existing business produced a 39% increase in EPS in 2018 and 14% increase in 2019. DividendToromont pays a quarterly dividend and has historically targeted a dividend rate that approximates 30 - 40% of trailing earnings from continuing operations.In February 2020 the Board of Directors increased the quarterly dividend by 14.8% to $0.31 per share. This marked the 31st consecutive year of increasing dividends and 52nd consecutive year of making a dividend payment. The five-year dividend-growth rate is 12.09%. Table 1: Information about the last eight dividends Risks/Threats and MitigationDependency on Caterpillar Inc.It goes without saying that Toromont’s future is heavily dependent on Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT). For those who don't know, Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives. It has a market cap in excess of $68 billion. All purchases made by Toromont must be made from Caterpillar. This agreement has been standing since 1993 and can be terminated by either side with 90 days notice. Given that the vast majority of Toromont’s inventory is Caterpillar products, Caterpillar’s brand strength and market acceptance are essential factors for Toromont’s continued success. I would say that the probability of either of these being damaged to an unrecoverable point are low, but at the beginning of this year, I would have said the probability of the world coming to a complete stop was very low too and look at what happened. Anything is possible. The reason this is a major consideration is because it's a going concern issue. Going conference is an accounting term for a company that has the resources needed to continue operating indefinitely until it provides evidence to the contrary. This term also refers to a company's ability to make enough money to stay afloat or to avoid bankruptcy. If there was irrevocable damage to Caterpillar’s brand, Toromont is no longer a going concern, meaning the company would most likely be going bankrupt or liquidating assets. The whole Company might not go under because the CIMCO, SITECH, and AgWest business units would survive but, essentially ~80% of the business would be liquidated. In addition to the morbid scenario I laid out above, Toromont is also dependent on Caterpillar for timely supply of equipment and parts. There is no assurance that Caterpillar will continue to supply its products in the quantities and time frames required by Toromont’s customers. So if there is supply chain shock, like the one we just saw, there is the chance that Toromont will not have access to sufficient inventory to meet demand. Which in turn would lead to the loss of revenue or even to the permanent loss of customers. Again, both of these threats have low a probability of occurring but either could single handedly cripple Toromont’s business. As of now, Caterpillar continues to dominate a large market share (~38% as per Gurufocus) in the industry against large competitors like John Deere, CNH Industrial, Cummins, and others. Caterpillar's stock has been on a slow decline for a couple years but that is due to reasons beyond the ones that directly concern Toromont’s day-to-day operations. I would say if you don't believe in Caterpillar’s continued market share dominance, investing in Toromont is probably not for you. Shortage of Skilled Workers Shortage of skilled tradesmen represents a pinch point for industry growth. Demographic trends are reducing the number of individuals entering the trades, thus making access to skilled individuals more difficult. Additionally, the company has several remote locations which makes attracting and retaining skilled individuals more difficult. The lack of such workers in Canada has caused Toromont to become more assertive and thoughtful in their recruitment efforts. To combat this threat, Toromont has/is:
Cyclical Business Cycle Toromont’s business is cyclical due to its customers' businesses being cyclical. This affects factors such as exchange rates, commodity/precious metal pricing, interest rates, and most importantly, inventory management. To mitigate this issue, management has put more focus on increasing revenues from product support activities as they are more profitable than the equipment supply business and less volatile. Environmental Regulations Affecting Customers Toromont’s customers are subject to significant and ever-increasing environmental legislation and regulation. This leads to 2 impacts:
Impact of COVID19 While the company had been declared as an essential service in all jurisdictions that it operates in, Q1 2019 results were lower as a function of COVID19 reducing activity in many sectors that Toromont services. Decline in mining and construction projects lead to a decrease in demand for Toromont products in the latter part of the quarter. Revenues were trending for 5-7% growth for the quarter before the effects of COVID19 were felt. Management cannot provide any guidance on how to evaluate the impact of COVID19 on future financial results. They are focusing on ensuring the continued safety of employees and working with customers and the jurisdiction they operate in to evaluate appropriate activity levels on a daily/weekly basis. Lastly, management is keeping a close eye on how this crisis has led to an increase in A/R delinquencies and financial hardship for customers. The Executive Team and the Board of Directors have taken a voluntary compensation reduction. Wage increase freezes and temporary layoffs have been implanted on a selective basis. Management believes that expanding product offerings and services, strong financial position, and disciplined operating culture positions the Company well for continued growth in the long term. Competition Toromont competes with a large number of international, national, regional, and local suppliers. Although price competition can be strong, there are a number of factors that have enhanced Toromont’s ability to compete:
Main Competitor in Canada: Finning International Inc.Finning International Inc. (TSE:FTT) is the world's largest Caterpillar dealer that sells, rents and provides parts and service for equipment and engines to customers across diverse industries, including mining, construction, petroleum, forestry and a wide range of power systems applications. Finning was founded in 1933 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
I am sure there are some people looking at this table and thinking Finning looks rather promising based on the metrics shown, especially in comparison to Toromont. Finning’s dividend yield, P/E, and price/book look more attractive. Their top line is 2x. Not to mention it operates worldwide and is the only distributor in the UK, while Toromont only operates in half of Canada.>! Before you go off thinking “I need to use my HELOC to buy some Finning,” as some people on this subreddit are prone to do, ask yourself: do you see any cause for concern in the metrics listed above? !< One glaring question I have is: why is Finning trading at half of Toromont’s market cap given that it operates internationally and has twice the number of employees and revenues of Toromont? Q1 2020 Financial ResultsFigure 3: Q1 2020 Income Statement Overall operating income, net earnings, and EPS all decreased even though Toromont saw an increase in revenue for the quarter compared to Q1 of 2019.
Assuming the world does return to “normal,” many of Toromont’s customers (especially in mining and construction) may try to catch up for lost time with increases to their operational activity, leading to an increase in Toromont’s sales for the remainder of the year. Of course this is a major assumption but it’s a possibility. Below is a comparison of the last eight quarters. You can see the clear cyclical nature of their business. Figure 4: Last eight quarters of earnings Sources of LiquidityCredit
Financial AnalysisAnalysis of DebtHistorically, Toromont has had very low debt levels. The spike in late 2017 was due to the acquisition of Hewitt. Management paid off the debt aggressively in 2018. At the end of December 2019 Toromont had $650 million of debt maturing between 2025 and 2027. As a result of COVID19 the company has taken on more debt. This additional access to debt accounts of the slight uptick in historical debt in 2020 (Figure 5). Figure 5: Toromont’s historical debt, equity, and cash The long-term debt to capitalization ratio is a variation of the traditional debt-to-equity ratio. The long-total debt to capitalization ratio is a solvency measure that shows the proportion of debt a company uses to finance its assets, relative to the amount of equity used for the same purpose. A higher ratio means that a company is highly leveraged, which generally carries a higher risk of insolvency with it. The debt-to-equity ratio is at 47% and debt-to-capitalization ratio is 32%, Toromont has $388 million in cash that could be used to pay down debt by nearly 50% and bring the net debt-to-equity to 23% and net debt-to-capitalization to 18%. As mentioned before, management is holding on to cash to insure sufficient liquidity during these times. The implication of these ratios is that Toromont does not take on large amounts of debt to finance growth. Instead the Company leverages shareholders equity to drive growth. For comparison, Finning has a debt-to-equity ratio of ~100% (it differs between WSJ, 99%, and Yahoo Finance, 101%). The nominal amount of their total debt is ~$2.2 billion, which gives them a long-term debt to capitalization ratio 62%. Finning carries $260 million in cash. Figure 6: Toromont’s debt-to-capitalization and debt-to-equity ratios Profitability Ratios Return on equity (also known as return on net assets) measures how effectively management is using a company’s assets to create profits. Toromont’s return on equity is generally around 20%. Go to Figure 6 to look at the ROE for the last 4 years. In comparison, Finning has had a ROE of ~11% for the last three years, about 3% in 2016 and a negative ROE in 2015 (as per Morningstar). Return on capital employed (ROCE) tries to find the return relative to the total capital employed in the business (both debt & equity less short-term liabilities). Toromont’s ROCE (ttm) for March 31 2020 was 22%. This means for every dollar employed in the business 22 cents were earned in EBIT (earnings before interest and tax). Finning had a ROCE of 11% as of December 2019. Liquidity Ratios Working capital is the amount of cash and other current assets a business has available after all its current liabilities are accounted for. In the last ten years, Toromont’s working capital has fluctuated between 1.6 at its lowest (2018) to 2.8 at its highest (2016). At the end of 2019 it was at 1.8. Meaning current liabilities equate to 60% of current assets. Interest coverage ratio is used to determine how easily a company can pay their interest expenses on outstanding debt. Toromont has an interest coverage ratio 15x (as per WSJ). Finning on the other hand is at 4x. At this point I feel like I'm just beating up on Finning. For those of you who made it this far, I have to admit something to you. This whole post is just a facade to ask you a question that has never been asked on this subreddit before: Should I buy BPY.UN? It keeps going down and I'm worried if I buy it, it will keep going down and I'll lose money. I don't want to lose money. Although if you go through my post history, you'll see I've been looking at/buying penny stocks. Key Performance MeasuresBelow is a chart with key financial measures for the last four years. A few things I want to highlight:
Price Chart ComparisonsI don't do technical analysis. To those who do, good luck to you because let's be real, you'll need it. This section is just to get an idea of past performance and evaluate the opportunity cost of investing in Toromont compared to a competitor or a board based index fund.I thought it would be easier to look at pictures as opposed to reading a bunch of numbers off a table. For the sake of not creating a picture album of screenshots, I just looked at charts for the last 5 years. If you're interested in looking at different time intervals you can do so on google finance.
These are the only two Caterpillar distributors on the TSX, making them direct comparisons. If I was looking for exposure to this industry, I would be choosing between these two companies (on the TSX anyways). There isn't really much to evaluate here. It's like they saying: “A picture is a thousand words,” or in this case, it's 128%. If you have time, go look at the graph from August 1996 to now. I can safely say it hasn't been much of a competition. Toromont has outperformed by ~2500% in stock price appreciation alone. If you're a glass half full kind of person, I guess you could look at this disparity as Finning having enormous upside. LOL
If I'm not buying individual stocks, I’m buying the S&P 500 and to a lesser extent a Nasdaq index fund. This gives me a second look at the opportunity cost of my money. The story is not as bad as the Finning comparison. If you had bought $100 dollars of Toromont stock 5 years ago, it would have turned into $207 today, whereas the same $100 dollars in VFV would have became $157. Just a quick aside, you can see the volatility in Toromont’s stock is much higher compared to the VFV. VFV has a relatively smooth trend upwards while Toromont trends upwards in a jagged path. This is the risk of single stocks, they move up and down more erratically, leading inventors who don't have a grasp of the business or conviction in their pick to panic sell or post countless times on Reddit asking why their stocks keep going down. “I bought the stock last week and it's done 3% already, do you guys think it’s going bankrupt? I thought stonks only go up???”
The S&P/TSX Capped Industrials Index isn't my favourite comparison for Toromont because its constituents cover many industries ranging from waste management (WCN), to railways (CNCP), to Airlines (AC, lol, had to mention it. I miss the days when there were double digits posts about AC. I wonder where those people have gone, because I can tell you where AC stock has gone... absolutely nowhere). Regardless, I used TTIN because I deemed it a better comparison to Toromont than the entire TSX. The story is on par with the other two comparisons. Toromont’s out performance is significant. I just threw this bonus chart in here because when I saw it, I was like BRUHHH (insert John Wall meme)… It's completely unsustainable but that's impressive given the vast differences between the two.
Now, of course, past performance does not dictate future results and all that good stuff, but it really gets you thinking about how the rewards disproportionately favours winners compared to the overall market. People are generally happy getting market returns (i.e. the just buy VGRO people) but being able to pick even a few winners really pays. This reminds me of the Warren Buffet quote: “diversification is protection against ignorance.” The context of the quote is that if you are able to study a few industries in great depth and acquire a wealth of knowledge, you can see returns astronomically higher than those who diversify across the board market. The problem then becomes you put yourself at risk of having all your eggs in one basket. Look at what's happening with Wirecard in Europe right now. This is why the real skill in investing is managing risk. Analyst Price Targets and EstimatesThe prince targets set for by analysts range from $63-$81. The average price target is ~$72, with the majority of targets within the 70-$71 range. Given the current price of $65.66, there is a ~10% upside. These price targets haven't changed much due to COVID19 even though revenues and EPS forecasts have been downgraded for 2020. The consensus estimate on 2020 revenues is $3.36 billion, down from the actual revenues of $3.69 billion in 2019 and the consensus EPS for 2020 is $3.01 down from actual EPS of $3.52 for 2019 and $3.10 for 2018. The fact that revenues and EPS forecasts have been downgraded, yet price targets remain untouched, for the most part, indicates that the effects of COVID19 are expected to be short-lived.Figure 12: Earnings and estimate ranges for Toromont. Note: EPS numbers in this graphic are diluted EPS numbers. ValuationMultiplesAssuming P/E ratio stays the same as it has been for the last 12 months (~19x) and EPS goes down to ~$3.00 (as per analyst consensus), the implied price would be $57. Using the last 12 months of revenues, the EV-to-Revenues ratio is at 1.56x. Assuming that ratio stays the same and with revenues estimated to be ~$3.36 billion, enterprise value (EV) comes out to $5.2416 billion. Using Q1 2020 figures for shares outstanding (82.015 million), cash ($388.182 million), and debt ($745.703 million), the implied price for a share is $58.94*. \Note: Enterprise Value is equal to market cap plus total debt minus cash.) Dividend Discount Model The dividend discount model (DDM) is a method of valuing a company's stock price based on the theory that its stock is worth the sum of all of its future dividend payments, discounted back to their present value. The average dividend growth rate is 12% for the last 5 years is 12%. There is no way Toromont can increase the dividend at this pace in the long term, thus, I chose a long term dividend growth rate of 5%. This is the assumed rate in perpetuity. The required rate of return will equal WACC, 6.85% (averaged from 2019 Annual Report). The dividend over the last year is $1.16 (two payments of $0.27 in 2019 and two payments of $0.31 for 2020). The fair value equals $65.84. Figure 13: DDM calculation. Closing ThoughtsThere is no doubt that Toromont trades at a large premium. The current P/E is 19x and the CAPE ratio (Shiller P/E) is 26x. The fair value of the Company as per Morningstar research is in the mid $60 range.Based on all valuations I did and analyst price targets, I would start buying in the high $50 range or maybe the very low $60 range, but my belief in the company has to do with long term thematic trends and how the Company operates, rather than today's price. Although I have to admit, the price does look more attractive now than it did in the beginning of June when the stock hit new all time highs. It seems like the only companies hitting new all time highs these days are tech companies, so it's refreshing to find a non-tech company achieving the same feat. Toromont is not going to double next year or the year after that. It is a relatively low margin business, with slow growth and a cyclical business cycle. I like that the Company has strong financials, low debt, and good management. They don't take shortcuts or unwarranted risk. Future growth will mostly be driven through acquisition, but management is cautious with acquisitions and don't overextend themselves. One of the biggest problems Finning has been facing for the last couple years is political and social turmoil in South American countries which is affecting their mining clients and thus affecting revenues/margins. The Q2 earnings are reported on July 22 202. We should have a clearer picture on the prospects of the Company from management. Hopefully we have a better idea of the COVID19 situation by then too. Regardless, I think the company is in a position where its services will always be in demand so short term fluctuations are not something that shake my confidence in this pick. Limitations and Further Areas of ResearchBy no means is this an exhaustive due diligence report. This is enough for me to feel confident in the business and its trajectory. Limitations/further areas of the research include:
>! I know I took a few shots at people in this post. It's all in good jest. If you're offended well.... maybe you should be. I don't know, you have to figure that out on your own or you could make a post on Reddit asking random people on the internet whether you should be offended or not. !< Remember I'm not an expert, I'm just a random guy on the internet. DisclosureI am long Toromont. This information is not financial advice. Please do your own research and/or talk to a financial advisor. All data provided is current prior to the market opening on June 29, 2020. Inconsistencies in data can be due to many reasons, the foremost being that data was spruced from multiple different websites. |
For a long time now, I have been playing almost exclusively martial characters, very rarely if ever playing full spellcaster classes. Some people would say that this is boring, that I should expand my horizons, do other things, but part of the reason I play so many martials is that the ultimate warrior is my ideal power fantasy. I don't care for the wizard who can bend space and time or the druid who can turn themselves into a dragon or the cleric who has learned to become the very avatar of their god on this mortal plane. These things do not interest me, they are not the representation of the kind of character I would want to become at the height of their power in a fantasy setting. No, my power fantasy is the man who can take on the world through martial prowess alone. To be a character who has become so skilled with his blade, so mighty with the wielding of weapons, that he is considered an army unto himself. A terror that carves its way through the battlefield, bolstering the morale of his allies and crushing the enemies that stand before him with unstoppable force.Please be civil in the comments and follow the rules.
But, therein lies the problem. This is not possible for martial characters in Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.
Now, let's back up a bit and get some context first. Please bear with me, this is probably going to be a long post.
A conversation that I regularly participate in the comments of this subreddit one where I feel martial characters are underpowered in comparison to spellcasting classes. Many would disagree by saying something along the lines of this:
"Spellcasters are versatile with low hit points while martial characters are tanky with good single target damage. That's the trade off."
The idea is that it is fair that a wizard can cast Fireball to hit multiple targets at once because eventually the Fighter can learn to make 4 attacks in one turn and use all of them to absolutely wail on one guy. AoE damage vs. Single Target damage. And for a while, I agreed with this notion. It's only recently that I've come to realize that even if this is true, it's still unfair.
There are situations that can represent a challenge without access to magic that simultaneously can be handwaved with magic. Stealth can be trivialized through Pass Without a Trace or higher level castings of Invisibility. Uncross-able divides can be crossed with Dimension Door or Arcane Gate or even just a simple Misty Step. A person can be convinced to do something with a casting of Suggestion or forced to do something with Dominate Person. These are the things that magic is capable of accomplishing. And this capacity to be useful in a myriad of circumstances is one of the great draws of being able to cast magic.
However, it's considered to be a fair trade that martial characters are not good/completely incapable of accomplishing such things simply because they are good at being able to hit things. Not even things, but a singular thing. Single target damage. Only Fighters get more than two attacks per Action, so getting mobbed by a large number of enemies at once is very bad for any martial character that is not a Fighter, and only marginally less bad if you are a Fighter. The problem of course is simply that they aren't capable of hitting them all at once. The martial's current role in a party is that they are supposed to be the ones who deal a large amount of damage to the boss enemy on their turn. The Barbarian uses their Reckless attack to roll 4d20 and try to get a Brutal Critical on the Demogorgon, the Fighter uses their Action Surge to try and hit the Adult Red Dragon 8 times, the Paladin uses all of their highest level spell slots to Divine Smite Acererak for 7d8 Radiant Damage. Lots of damage, but only on the single enemy. I find this to be unfair as a trade off for two primary reasons:
It feels bad to be only good at fighting single enemies. All of these martial examples are not likely to be good at skill checks. Good at what they're good at, sure, but most characters will only end up with between 4 and 6 proficiencies unless they're a Rogue or take the Skilled Feat. And in all of these cases, the optimal stat distribution causes them to not be naturally good at other things as well. Barbarians are very multi-ability-dependent, needing high Strength and Constitution but then also needing Dexterity to bump up their AC, each being prioritized in that order. That means the other three mental stats will become worse. Fighters also tend to prioritize Strength and Constitution (if you're playing the classic archetype) and most Paladins do the same with Charisma being a tertiary stat since it is their spellcasting. So with all of them prioritizing Strength and Constitution, there is only a single skill (Athletics) between those two abilities. Even if you play a Dexterity Fighter, you're only getting good at 3 skills. As opposed to a Wizard or a Druid or a Cleric who put their points into their main stat and become decent at 5 skills as a result. Whether martial or spellcaster, all of these classes get 2 proficiencies to start. But by nature spellcasters will be skilled at more things than the martials will be because their main stats are better for more things. So it feels like being a martial makes you only good at fighting single enemies while spellcasters get to be good at fighting multiple enemies, getting over impassable obstacles, and many different kinds of skill checks. Which brings me to my second reason.
Spellcasters are actually just as good or better at single target damage than martial characters. The average damage for a failed save on Meteor Swarm is about 50% more than the average damage for 8 successful hits with a greatsword as a Fighter using Action Surge.
Meteor Swarm: 20d6(rolls of 3)+20d6(rolls of 4) = 140
8 Greatsword Attacks with 20 Strength: 16d6(rolls of 3 and 4) + 40 = 96
"But that's a 9th level spell vs Action Surge. Of course the 9th level spell is more powerful."
Let's compare instead a mid level Wizard vs a mid level Barbarian using the Comprehensive Damage Per Round Calculator.
Wizard lvl 12
First round animate object as a 6th lvl spell vs. ac 17
- dmg output 48.3
Second and third round animate object + 2 castings of Cone of Cold
- dmg output 78.3*2
Total damage for a lvl 12 wizard in 3 rounds: 204.9
Barbarian lvl 12
Human barbarian, 20 str, PaM, GWM, a +1 glaive vs. ac 17
+5 to hit (10-5 from GWM)
First round bonus action rage and 2 reckless attacks
1d10+1(Glaive)+5(str)+3(rage)+10(GWM)
- dmg output 36.3
Second and third round
glaive attack and bonus action attack with the end.
- dmg output 52.1*2
Total damage for a lvl 12 barbarian in 3 rounds: 140.5
As you can see, the Wizard handily outstrips the Barbarian. And we even gave the Barbarian a magic item and feats that time. Spellcasting classes are capable of outputting just as much or more single target damage as a martial class. The argument that is often made after this is that a martial class can continue to output this throughout the course of a day whereas a spellcaster has to use many resources that they can only get back later, but I contest this by saying most people don't have that many encounters per day and that while a martial can sustain this damage over the course of several rounds, most encounters will not last long that long anyways. All the enemies will be dead before a martial can stack up enough hits to match what the spellcaster has already done. Even if we do assume multiple rests and encounters over a day, the Wizard can use Arcane Recovery to get back the 6th level spell slot they just used. So they're still probably just fine for the next encounter.
So for those two reasons, I present the case that martials truly are left in the dust by spellcasters in almost every regard. That's the context for this. But this isn't just me crying because I'm a power gamer who wants to be OP. More than just the mathematics of it, I feel that there is a power fantasy is left almost entirely unfulfilled for martial characters.
What is it that makes warrior characters in movies and stories stand out, look cool, and feel powerful?
What does Captain America do? https://youtu.be/oRwFd1G6_U4?t=42
What does The Punisher do? https://youtu.be/01SYT5MPsHw?t=28
What does The Bride in Kill Bill do? https://youtu.be/a3aFv8IQb4s?t=319
Neo and Trinity do? https://youtu.be/NgAmX8GRwDw?t=57
Aragorn? (the most classic of all fantasy warrior archetypes) https://youtu.be/wSgeEH-Zwbk?t=3
Thor? (yes, even though he uses magic I still argue he's a martial character because of the way that he primarily engages in physical combat) https://youtu.be/-mHaq88BAV4?t=131
Ip Man? https://youtu.be/Kv9ygN2B8WU?t=97
John Wick? https://youtu.be/SamAItb8L58?t=86
Or John Wick? https://youtu.be/0L9SzBANF0w?t=264
Or what about John Wick? https://youtu.be/ElZ9y6l9KhI
A common theme with all of these characters is that they can fight many opponents at once and still win. Whether outnumbered by a handful or outnumbered by a hundred, they make a real contest out of something that would and should make instant losers out of anybody else. When they do it by themselves, they're badass. When they do it in the middle of a battlefield, their martial prowess inspires the common soldiers around them. This is all part of the fantasy of being a powerful non-magic fighting character. I put in John Wick three times because the whole draw of his character is that he's so hyper-competent at killing that he can take down entire organizations of enemies by himself. Even in a world of assassins and professional killers, they consider him their Boogeyman. And this character was so popular it spawned a franchise that thusfar has made more than $500 million dollars at the box office. But the part where he has a 1v1 with the bad guy is not what makes us like him. It's arguably the most underwhelming part of the first John Wick movie. Being able to fight many enemies is often cooler than fighting a single skilled enemy.
https://youtu.be/WAwl1mprHZI?t=153
Take this clip from the movie Hero as a prime example that shows both ends of the spectrum. In the first half of the scene, two people are fighting their way through a literal army on their own and winning. In the second half of the scene, there is a duel between two swordmasters. And while the duel exhibits great skill, it is not the more impressive half of the scene. To put it another way, the thing that makes you think Broken Sword is skilled is not that he duels the Emperor. Rather, it's the other way around. You believe that the Emperor is skilled because he is capable of fighting Broken Sword, a man who just cut his way through an entire army with the help of only one other person.
https://youtu.be/fLxSRdnGucA
The pinnacle of a martial character's "cool factor" is not the ability to be able to participate in skilled single combat against someone of equal skill, but to be outnumbered so dramatically that there should be no chance of winning, and yet they can and do anyways. The odds and logic of the situation tell you that it is impossible. But they accomplish the impossible with nothing but the swiftness of their sword.
Now, don't get me wrong, one on one fights definitely are cool. But what can take an entire scene to establish that competence can be established in seconds using a battle in which the hero is heavily outnumbered. They are cool in different ways, one being naturally more drawn out than the other, but it's important to have both. If you're only limited to one or the other but not both, that kind of sucks.
https://youtu.be/xT66YPk0Q5w?t=190
https://youtu.be/jx9Phl04VSQ?t=905
Back to D&D, it is not possible to be this kind of character as a martial. Firstly, due to the mathematics and action economy of the system, it is always more efficient to put all of your damage onto a single target because it's hard to spread out. Secondly because you are limited in the number of attacks you can make, that puts a hard limit on the number of enemies you can kill per turn. 20th level Fighter with 4 attacks? Barring specific subclass abilities or feats, it's literally impossible to exceed killing that number of enemies. Even with feats, you only max out at 5 attacks (using the bonus action attack from Great Weapon Master) on your turn without using Action Surge. If you are outnumbered 100 to 1, how long do you think a 20th level martial character could last? Say you're a 20th level Fighter against 100 Goblins, no Great Weapon Master feat. Assuming you hit with 100% accuracy and kill every one of them in one shot and use both of your Action Surges, it will take you 23 turns to kill them all. And for each one of your turns, they can also make their turn, surrounding you on all sides and attacking you 8 times a turn in response. For ease of calculation, if you had 18 AC wearing non-magical plate armor, Mob Combat rules (found on DMG page 250) assume you are statistically likely to take 12 damage per turn. 252 damage (using average damage) over 21 turns of keeping you surrounded. If you have enemies that aren't CR 1/4 against a 20th level character, say 100 CR 1/2 Thugs, they could make two attacks each, that turns into 16 times per turn and that turns into 30 damage per turn. 630 damage over 21 turns. If the Fighter had 20 Constitution and maximum health rolls (10 on a d10) at every level, they would have 300 hit points. They would barely survive against the goblins. They would not survive against the thugs. That's not even including the possibility of being attacked from range with shortbows and crossbows and such. Eventually, you will lose. And it won't even really be close.
We think these characters should be capable of surviving situations like these, after all at 20th level any Fighter should be a legendary character based on their prowess and skill. But the way the game works, they just aren't capable of surviving.
What is the power fantasy of a spellcaster? To be so powerful that they can bend reality to their will? To cast magics that affect the very fabric of existence? Could a 20th level spellcaster survive a 1 v 100? Quite handily I think actually. How about a 1 v 1000? Well, given that Meteor Swarm allows you to make explosions of 40d6 damage in a 40 foot radius in 4 different locations, you could actually hit 900 creatures at once if they were all bunched up enough (each meteor can hit 225 creatures at peak efficiency). Turn that down to a 1 v 100 real quick. Mathematically, it's entirely possible simply because they can deal enough damage at a fast enough rate combined with the myriad of spells they can use for damage mitigation (Shield, Blade Ward, Blink, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Blur, etc.)
Many might argue that this is fair, as it is unrealistic for a single person to be able to fight 100 people at once without magic and win. That could never happen in real life. But then I would counter with this:
Aren't we playing Dungeons and Dragons?
Is it realistic for someone to be able to pull meteors out of orbit with their mind? Or open up gates to other dimensions because they figured out how to tear holes in reality? Or to have discovered a word that is so powerful, so forbidden, that simply speaking it can cause another person to drop dead on the spot? Or to raise an undead army of skeletons? Why does realism become the limit for a Fighter when the Wizard's entire existence is predicated on breaking the rules of our reality?
Almost any spellcaster's power fantasy can come true. If you want to be someone who causes explosions on the battlefield, you can do that. If you want to be someone who turns illusions into reality, you can do that. If you want to be a seer who prophesies the future, you can do that. If you want to take over the world with thousands of full powered spellcasting clones of yourself, you can even do that. You are more limited by your own imagination and creativity than the actual rules of the game. But the simple fantasy of "I want to be able to fight a bunch of guys at once" is out of reach of the martial character, despite the fact that it's supposed to be the primary thing they're good at.
To summarize and conclude, I am of the opinion that the most common image of a skilled fantasy warrior is exemplified in their ability to fight a large number of enemies at once or in quick succession, not their ability to handily defeat a single opponent. The biggest design flaw and biggest disappointment for martial characters is their inability to fulfill this fantasy. Their single target damage is mechanically what they are known for, but I think what martial players like me really want more than anything is to be able to fight many enemies at once. I believe one of the ultimate power fantasies for a martial character is to be able to fearlessly charge forward into any number of enemies with full confidence of victory until a suitable challenger approaches. If Dungeons and Dragons is a game of wish fulfillment, the wishes of martial players like me cannot be fulfilled as it is currently designed.
https://youtu.be/qLJMDDxt408?t=25
I've been looking at old playtest packets for 5th edition and I found out some interesting things. The 11th level Hunter Ranger feature, Multiattack used to be something that any martial character had a choice to take at some point. Whirlwind Attack was available to be learned by Fighters and Monks, and Volley was on the list of Fighter maneuvers that could be learned. It seems to me that the reason that martial characters are so subpar in comparison now is that they were watered down across the board, mechanics that used to be able to be used by many are currently sequestered into individual subclasses.
Now, to be clear, I'm not really looking for a "solution" to this problem. At least not as far as 5th edition is concerned. The issues are too fundamental, too rooted in the core of the system to solve without an egregious amount of homebrewing. But I did want to put this out there as a topic of discussion to see if others in the community find validity in my idea. Is the problem of "linear fighters vs quadratic wizards" just an issue of efficiency, versatility, and mathematics? Or is the true problem that martial characters lack the ability to fulfill what is probably one of the core wishes of people who want to be warriors in fantasy settings?
edits: many typos I spotted after the fact -_-
Edit 2:
There's a lot of common responses I keep seeing pop up here that I want to address here in the main post.
"This is a game of resource management, you should just have more encounters per day to balance it out!"
First of all, this isn't something that a player can do themselves. This is entirely dependent on a DM and it's much more work for them to do so and be accommodating. They have to balance every encounter. It isn't as simple as just "having more encounters." Someone has to do that work.
Second of all, I mentioned this, but at a certain point it just becomes a slog when you're being constantly worn down every day just to give enough time for turtle martials to catch up to rabbit spellcasters. I don't know about you, but even as a martial, I wouldn't have fun doing this all the time.
Third of all, it completely ignores the point of my post. I don't care about being able to mathematically catch up to the wizard over the course of a day, I want to feel badass in my own right and I want to be able to do it whenever I want. It doesn't matter that a Wizard can cast Meteor Swarm once per day and I can use Action Surge once/twice per short rest. The point is that I use it and I'm done. And until I get that next short rest, I'm just as weak as a Wizard. Fighters can "recover" more quickly than spellcasters, but in the actual encounter? In the actual fight? They have less resources that they can burn through more quickly than spellcasters. This is the crux of the problem here. Without rests, there is nothing that makes a Fighter better than a Wizard. Anything I can do, he can do better, 🎶 he can do anything better than me. 🎶
It's basically the same thing as saying a Wizard can finish a marathon with their spells but then they'll be really tired when they're done. You can finish the marathon too if you take a few hour long rests along the way. Why can't I just finish the marathon with my own strength? Am I at least faster at sprinting the hundred meter dash? No, the Wizard is faster at that too, but you'll be able to do another hundred meter dash in an hour or so. He still can too, he'll just be marginally slower than you.
Do you see the problem with this argument yet?
"Martial characters should be getting magic items to make them better and then they'll be as good as spellcasters."
But spellcasters don't need magic items. This only supports the argument that martial classes are handicapped in comparison to spellcasters. It's essentially saying that spellcasters can stand on their own but martial classes need a magic item wheelchair to be able to keep up. Do you see the problem here?
Why is it too much to ask that martial classes can stand at the same level as spellcasters through just their own class features?
"Cleave is a really good tool."
And I agree. But last time I asked my DM, he said no. Maybe I'll get to ask him again, but I respect his rulings because he's my friend and I respect him.
"It sounds like the 5th edition system is not for you. You should try something else, like Pathfinder 2e!"
I would if I could but my group seems happy playing 5th edition. As much as this post is a huge complaint rant, not everything is about me. And I won't DM a Pathfinder game because frankly, I'm not good at DMing. I think other people have less fun when I'm behind the screen and I think I have less fun when I'm behind the screen. I wish it weren't the case, but it seems to be the one I'm stuck with. I just don't have a mind made for DMing.
The options trading success stories you find here are NOT from people who casually studied the material. And they are NOT from people who had massive success right from the get go. They are from people just like you and me. They had both ups and downs. They had good days and they had bad days. I’ve made 20% ROI in 6 months and lost it all in a single month. Then I lost 30% in 10 trades the following month. I’ve earned and lost thousands of dollars, almost blew up my entire account twice, got dozens of margin calls, tried multiple Machine Learning techniques, traded multiple markets, time-frames and instruments. What is Margin Trading? Margin trading is when an investor borrows money from a brokerage to buy an asset. It is the difference between the borrowed amount from the broker and the total value of the assets held in the investor’s account. If you are borrowing on margin, then you are borrowing money from a brokerage to buy securities. The ... Therefore, both these options trading success stories highlight the importance of disciplined trading practice coupled with a passion and deep understanding of the markets. It shows that an in-depth understanding is crucial for success and at the same time one needs to be extremely alert and agile in terms of the market dealings. But that success got ahead of me, and the last day of January I ended up chasing a trade I knew I was too late on, I failed to adjust my position, and that cost me $6,000.
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Your A to Z on margin trading with Binance. Learn everything from opening your account, how to long and short and how to repay margin loans. Subscribe to kee... Click here to Subscribe - https://www.youtube.com/OptionAlpha?sub_confirmation=1 Are you familiar with stock trading and the stock market but want to learn h... What is margin trading? What is a margin? What is the difference between a cash account and a margin account? In episode #34 of Real World Finance we dive de... Interview with Tom De Mark. Million Dollar Traders - Part 3 British reality TV Series & Course created by Lex van Dam - Duration: 59:07. Lex van Dam Trading Academy 172,744 views One trading jargon that you’ll hear very often is margin. It’s usually in terms like margin account, margin trading and even margin call. It seems a bit comp...