Weekend Update #017
Welcome to Blue Room's Weekend Update. Each week, we're sharing what companies we're researching and the what, the who and the how that we think makes the companies interesting and unique. This roundup is brought to you weekly by a group of interns, creative minds, artists and investors who believe that through best in class investing along with the democratization of financial education we can do great things together. Enjoy, Explore and Share.
THE WEEK THAT GAMESTOP BROKE WALL STREET.
It seems like decades ago when we saw the GameStop stock start to climb, as we reflected upon the company’s worth to our younger selves, on October 15th during our morning #bullpen — archived in the video below. This week brought loads of debate, not very much sleep but a lot of fun as we watched the Stock Market Super Bowl.
ON FEBRUARY 13TH NATHANIEL RATELIFF MAKES HIS SNL DEBUT
Chapter One
(of Three)
Growing up in rural Missouri, Nathaniel Rateliff got his early music education from his family, who performed in the church band in which Nathaniel played drums. Nathaniel’s father was killed in a car crash, which forced Nathaniel to drop out of seventh grade and end his formal education. He immediately took a job to help provide for his family, working at the local plastic factory and then Subway. One of Rateliff's full-time jobs was working as a janitor at what would have been his high school. Four years after his father’s accident, Nathaniel’s mother moved to Texas with her new husband. At that point, Nathaniel moved in with his best friend, Joseph Pope and his family(Joseph took Nathaniel as his date to the high school senior prom that Nathaniel should have been attending on his own). At 19, Nathaniel left Missouri for Colorado on a missionary trip as a way of getting out of his hometown. As Nathaniel recounts, he was actually the one to be converted by the Native Americans. Then, Rateliff moved to Denver, where he still resides twenty years later. In his early days in Denver, he worked night shifts at a bottle factory and then spent ten years working on the loading dock of a trucking company while testing out songs at open-mic nights.
An intense local buzz grew about Nathaniel and led to Nathaniel landing a record deal with Rounder Records. Rateliff’s 2010 solo album, ‘In Memory of Loss’, propelled him to the forefront of Denver’s music scene, with The New York Times dubbing him “a local folk-pop hero”. From that point on Nathaniel would start his career as a hard working musician. He toured extensively in North America, the UK, and Europe to critical acclaim and small audiences, all the time with his guitar player, bass player and still best friend Joseph Pope by his side. Never returning from tour with enough money, Rateliff kept day jobs when back in Denver mainly getting his hands in the dirt as a landscaper.
Reflecting on his mothers move to Texas Nathaniel remarked “My mom was just in her mid-30s. She didn’t know what the f*ck was going on either. I told her, ‘I don’t blame you. It’s not what cards you’re dealt, it’s how you play them.’ I think it was [science-fiction writer] Ursula Le Guin in The Earthsea Trilogy who says, ‘Never trust someone without a limp.’ Character isn’t defined by our strengths but by what we overcome,” says Rateliff.
( TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR )
Chapter Two
EVERYTHING TO KNOW
"As we expected, the virus continues to mutate, and these data show the continued ability of REGEN-COV™ to neutralize emerging strains, further validating our multi-antibody cocktail approach to infectious diseases,"
George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D.
President and Chief Scientific Officer at Regeneron
2021 01 28 Blue Room Meeting #036
Thursday
January 28, 2021
12 PM BLUE ROOM
Meeting Number Thirty Six
__________ __________
Adam Lipsius is a writer, film maker and producer whose company is called Uptown 6. He was able to introduce himself to our new team.
__________ __________
This week’s prompt: What Are the Opportunities Ahead for Blue Room?
See you soon! I said to my friends before boarding the Dartmouth Coach. As the bus pulled away, I pressed my face against the window to catch a final glimpse of campus before it slowly faded into the snowy white background. Never before had a place brought me such happiness and joy. Even in freezing weather, Dartmouth magically radiates comfort and warmth. It is a place that both stimulates my intellectual curiosity and builds lifelong friendships. It is a place that ignited my love for nature and reignited my love for swimming. Although I was excited to go home and embrace the company of my family, I was already anticipating my return to campus.
Then, suddenly, somehow, the world as we knew it completely and utterly fell apart — every sense of normalcy vanished. Two weeks at home became five weeks. Five weeks snowballed into ten weeks and to date, those ten weeks have become 11 months.
When I try to reflect on 2020, I am confronted with a maze of thoughts that are difficult to pin down. It was a time that revealed the implicit and explicit racial injustices that are still pervasively prevalent. It was a time that deteriorated the mental wellbeing of many and surfaced hidden wealth disparities. It was a time of death, violence, and economic instability. But amongst these trying times, there were signs of unity and strides of progress. As I narrow my thoughts to reminisce on my personal 2020 experience, I uphold this ambiguity.
2020 was a time of acceptance — with myself and with the situation. I carried many unresolved emotions with me going into this year. In college, it was easy to distract myself and push issues to the back of my mind. When my life switched to staying home all day and being away from friends, distractions were nonexistent and I was left to deal with these unsolved fragments alone. I spent the year working through them, ultimately reaching new levels of personal growth. Though I think this end resolution was inevitable, conquering these internal conflicts in solitude consolidated in an unexpected epiphany — I could achieve inner harmony without external dependency. This provided me with a sense of comfort and confidence that I continue to carry with me.
Moreover, despite 2020 being a limbo of isolation, my view on relationships evolved. During this year, I crossed paths with people I might have otherwise never met — through Zoom classes, remote internships, and an impromptu 10 week stay in the Poconos mountains. Some people I met will continue to be in my life, while others, despite leaving a meaningful impression on my life, I likely will never see again. I struggle to let things go, but 2020 has helped me find the meaning of a relationship in all its vulnerable moments rather than internalizing expiration dates. I recognize that the connection I shared with these people would have never happened without the factor of coincidence in our respective situations. Thus, instead of focusing on the goodbyes, I choose to fondly hold onto the memories and accept the idea of friends for a “season”.
Finally, 2020 was a time of adaptability and discovery. As college sports programs were cut across the nation, I was one of the affected student-athletes. A person's sense of self can easily be created by external, tangible factors; but when stripped of those items, it is difficult to find a sense of self with what is left. When swimming, a construct of familiarity, disintegrated along with all other forms of normalcy, I wrestled to find a new identity. The loss encouraged me to search for new sources of happiness. I found enjoyment in reading books and listening to podcasts. I experimented in the kitchen, creating and mastering new concoctions. I discovered a passion for running as I explored avenues of fitness outside of swimming. Swimming remains a foundationional part of who I am, but after this year, these new interests have become unexpected additions.
The magnitude of 2020’s effect is complex and not meant to be fully understood. It continues to produce a ripple effect of surprises as time moves forward and the gap with this year widens. Recognizing this, I treasure my takeaways from 2020 and welcome 2021 with open arms.
The mill is officially at 79% with steady yield increase on the horizon.
Through diligent efforts by the team, the mill is achieving these results through three main factors: maintaining a colder warehouse temp of 50-55 degrees, increasing grain feed rate and stone adjustment to get them as close as possible to one another to increase friction achieving a very optimal particle size. Further experimenting ensues through tempering — adding water to grain before milling — grain that will be sifted to 70% extraction. New findings conclude that lower moisture levels in grain makes for a better quality whole wheat flour, dry CO climate is definitely on our side. It is exciting to see the continued evolution and innovation and Dry Storage delivers flavor, performance and solutions for the supply chain.
Hi everyone! My name is Hassan Ali, I am a junior at Dartmouth College double majoring in Quantitative Social Sciences and Economics. I am from Kent, Washington and am the son of two Somali immigrants who came to the United States in the 1980s looking for better opportunities. I recently joined Blue Room as an intern not fully knowing what to expect but three weeks into my internship it is evident that Blue Room is a special company with a special culture. The company stays true to what drew me in initially, the fact that it is not an investment company with the narrow focus of making profit but rather a company that also prides itself on leaving a lasting social impact.
During my short time at Blue Room I have been working on researching Salesforce, a cloud-based software company. Blue Room is the type of company that rewards creative thinking and facilitates a culture where everyone’s voice is heard. Company-wide meetings on Thursday’s give all team members the opportunity to contribute to the vision of Blue Room. I am looking forward to growing and learning everything that I can from the team at Blue Room who are all brilliant and passionate about what they do.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
<Applause>
<Applause>
<Applause>
Turns out,
Shorting Stocks,
Like Making Lemonade,
Is —not— an Exact Science
In the Blood Death Match of Making Momentum Money
Robbing Hood(s) on Wall Street
From the Pits of GME, AMC and BB
To Any Arena where Complacent Shorts Might Be Trapped
_____
Dear SEC,
Short Selling is Fine, but Should Be Brought Into the Light, with More Transparency, around Inventory and Borrow Rates. Let them play a fair game of tug of war.
Also,
For Material Events,
Please Mandate a 48-Hour Trading Embargo.
Humans Need Time to Read and Analyze the Press Release and Listen to the Conference Call.
Thank you,
Minyoung Sohn, CFA
Founder of Blue Room
__________
The Bullpen meets each market day at 9:30 AM Denver time. This is the start of the third week for our 3rd Internship Class.
Watch Our Meeting:
10% OF ALL BLUE ROOM REVENUES GO DIRECTLY TO FUND OUR NON PROFIT TOGETHERISM.
WE CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING TOGETHER.