Forum Topics APX APX Appen Ltd General Discussion
AlphaAngle
one year ago

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Does feel like we are about to enter one of those dumb periods where anything vaguely AI related including just a press release about using an unrelated product gets punted to the moon briefly.

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laoshi
one year ago

Quite a bit of media recently referencing data contracting companies and their use of low paid migrant workers .This ABC article focuses on APX “ Behind 'miracle' AI is an army of 'ghost workers' — and they're speaking out about Appen”


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Nnyck777
2 years ago

Thanks @Chagsy for the excellent economist podcast share. A re-validation of my Appen Bear case- machines will train humans will not be needed in a lot of foundational models.

Fascinating chat with Kate Crawford. I just downloaded her book Atlas of AI. The next in the list after I finish Ray Dahlio’s book Changing world order- fascinating stuff. A really timely reminder of human patterns repeating themselves.

I’ll share any illuminating AI insights once I am done. If anyone is looking for a brilliant show for an upcoming wet weekend check out Devs. Seriously one of the best shows that I have ever watched. Now off to watch Ex-Machina again, also a favorite.

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lankypom
2 years ago

I admire the intestinal fortitude of anyone still holding APX. It has been one of the worst ever performers in my RL portfolio. I clung on to it for most of last year, before selling out at $10.50, for a 50% loss.

I don't think anyone really knows how big the market for human-annotated data is any more, and with the concentration risk and obsolescence risk in Appen's business model I think that the downside outweighs the upside. This is one company I'm happy to walk away from, licking my wounds.

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Bear77
2 years ago

I agree with you about Appen @Alpha18 and I was warning about them last year, however human behaviour dictates that we will often be selective with what facts we attach the most weight to due to confirmation bias, and other biases that seem to inhibit our ability to step back and look at every investment completely logically and without emotion or bias, and particularly with those investments where we already have sunk capital. I was guilty of this with Zoono. Held on for far too long and sold out finally on 1st Feb this year after reading their latest quarterly report (released late on the 31st Jan). I was convinced they were oversold all the way down, but I was wrong. They are a terrible company and I shouldn't have invested in them. Well, I can forgive myself for investing in them, but I should have sold out a LOT sooner than I did. They looked good when I first invested in them, they were profitable and had just declared a 3 cps dividend, and Covid-19 should have given them a brilliant tailwind, but over subsequent reports they proved to have incompetent and inept management and their products were clearly not gaining the traction in the market that their spin would have us believe. Every positive metric declined into negative territory, they are now loss-making with declining revenue and higher and higher costs, particularly legal costs and consultancy fees. It was easy to read and believe their reports that this was all temporary setbacks in what would eventually prove to be a wonderful business. However the gap between the spin and the actual numbers just widened and widened. In their December Quarter report (released late on 31-Mar-2022) they actually seemed to be giving up on the positive spin, as there was a lot less of it and I realised their report for H1 of FY22 was going to be a shocker so I sold the lot. The realised loss was bigger than it needed to be. I gave them too much rope and my investment thesis was not tight enough. In hindsight there was significant thesis creep there and it won't happen again. I sold out at 28 cps in IRL and they are now 22.5 cps. APX's share price graph tells a similar story. I think there was finally that "capitulation" yesterday, with that -28.7% fall, and while they have bounced by around +9.8% today, I consider it a dead-cat-bounce. They are looking more and more like a basket case. A value trap. Something to steer well clear of, like Zoono.


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AlphaAngle
2 years ago

I disagree topline still grew. Orders in hand higher than last year and new markets growing at 20%+

Producing significant free cashflow and well capitalised with cash in the bank and no debt.

The market will do what it wants.

Don't really think this has any similarity with zoono...

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Noddy74
2 years ago

Brilliant post @Dominator - I learnt a lot there. Many of those are lessons that we hear in podcasts and articles etc. all the time but rarely using such a specific example. It's not a stock that I've owned but I can certainly apply those moments you describe to other investments I have owned and have similarly lost money in unnecessarily. Well done for documenting it and in particular for documenting it here.

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Dominator
2 years ago

Thanks Noddy, glad you liked the post. Good point about podcasts/articles/books, you hear/see all these different sayings, in isolation they make complete sense but it is always more nuanced than that, no hard and fast rules/concepts actually work. The only way to learn this is time in the market to develop your strategies that can minimise your chances of loss and maximise gains. All I can say is I've been doing a lot of learning and still have a long way to go!

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