Ann: Preliminary Final Report, page-35

The ironic thing is I was on these threads (more on APT though) a couple of years ago arguing impending interest rate rises, growing regulation and competition, and ultimately investor exuberance would see a crash in BNPL valuations to similar vitriol from longs. Its funny, UBS was then the point of ridicule for longs all through the rally having gone too early on similar calls. UBS ironically is now the celebrated flag bearer for shorts on ZIP threads.

You should have seen the abuse from longs on APT threads. This crap is child's play by comparison. I'd been long APT from IPO and happily confess I was very edgy before I finally sold out at $45 with a by then big $ position. I felt it exuberant at that price. How wrong I was. I shorted from $120 to its highs (and ZIP from $10+) and my last exit trade around $80 (ZIP around $8) and was called Judas (having been an early APT long) and all sorts.

Never did I imagine ZIP would trade <$1 again. The markets are the markets and individual stock kurtosis more evident than ever before in the markets. Were the longs screaming "YOLO" on Reddit in 2021 any different to the down-rampers on here now? Individual stock volatilities have gone ballistic in 3 years after being benign for a decade.

Any fool can see ZIP is about to go cash flow positive. Whether it can stay positive is another matter. Larry swallowed his pride on his global domination hopes and closed it's loss-making business and took the impairments. They ran the business recklessly in 2020/21 undeniably which is in part why the cost savings have been so pronounced. That and continued revenue growth (I did explain back in 2022 why I expected revenues to continue to grow despite rising IR to obvious ridicule) allowed this coming breakeven in 1HFY24. I agree no cap raise before it comes cash flow positive - but lets be honest (I have to demyth my ramper/pumper/etc mantle ) its effectively done them via the long convertible note retirement if we are honest, hence it trades at $0.30.

Higher rates for longer, no surprise to me. The FED and other CB's called inflation so wrong (another mistake I happily concede was not making more money on that - went short equity index futures in late 2021, should have been more aggressive and picked up some SPY/SPI puts, but it was not until December after Powells April 2021 "transitory" numptiness before the mkts stopped rallying). Once inflation entrenched - strike action in Europe and UK classic evidence - only a recession removes it quickly.

Despite the Fed signaling a slow down in rate rises, November may see one. ZIP needs to keep growing revenues at double digits and keep its bad debts below 2% and operating expense growth below 5% to really stay EBTDA positive going forward. Personally I think it will hover around neutral to just slightly profitable at best in coming years. That's frankly enough.

ZIP had a mkt cap of $13 billion in early 2021. That was ridiculous. So is its market cap at anything under $500 million for a $600 million+ a year revenue business growing double digits that is finally breaking even on cash flows. Anything above $2 billion I'd start getting very edgy again. Investors need to take the drama/history out of it. Just trade the business figures. ZIP is a buy at these levels as much as it was a sell at $10+.