Latest news with #PaulMeeks
Business Upturn
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Upturn
Water Tower Research (WTR) Adds Paul Meeks as Managing Director
St. Petersburg, FL, June 04, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Water Tower Research LLC ( is modernizing IR with a powerfully differentiated ecosystem of investor relations services, research-driven content and communications, and investor engagement. Water Tower Research is pleased to announce that Paul Meeks has joined the firm as Managing Director. Shawn Severson, WTR CEO and Co-Founder, said, 'We are pleased to welcome Paul to Water Tower Research as the newest member of our expanding Technology Team. Paul brings deep expertise in investment management and a distinguished track record of insight into the technology sector. His perspective will further strengthen our already outstanding team, joining Dr. John Roy and Kunal Madhukar in delivering industry-leading research and thought leadership. As we continue to grow our coverage across dynamic and innovative technology companies, Paul's contributions will be instrumental in broadening our reach and delivering even greater value to investors. At Water Tower Research, our mission is to democratize access to high-quality equity research—helping all investors uncover new opportunities and understand the key trends, companies, and catalysts shaping the future of tech.' Paul Meeks is a Managing Director on the Technology team at Water Tower Research. He brings more than 30 years of buy-side experience to WTR as an institutional investment analyst, portfolio manager, research director, and chief investment officer. Paul is widely recognized for having launched and managed $8 billion in technology funds for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, among the largest technology-focused funds during the dot-com era. The fund was acquired by BlackRock in 2006. He has also held management positions with Jurika and Voyles, NMH Advisors, and Saturna Capital. Paul started his career at Trinity Investment Management in Boston. He currently holds management positions with Harvest Portfolio Management and 17 Asset Management. Paul is also a well-respected commentator and recognized technology expert. He has appeared weekly on air in the business media to 'talk tech' since 1995 and is recognized as CNBC's 'Tech Guru'. Paul also hosts 'Tech Tune-Up with Paul Meeks' each week on Benzinga's YouTube channel. Over the last 20 years, Paul has also served as an adjunct or full-time professor of finance and accounting at three universities, most recently at The Citadel's Baker School of Business where he raised $2 million for and was faculty advisor to the Student Managed Investment Fund. Paul earned bachelor's degrees in history and political science from Williams College and holds an MM (MBA) from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He is a CFA charterholder and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA). About Water Tower Research Water Tower Research is modernizing Investor Relations through research-driven communications and Investor Engagement. Sound investment research begins with good information. At WTR, we help companies and investors connect by creating expert information flow and strategies that are the foundation of a successful modern investor relations platform. Our analysts and capital markets professionals bring decades of unrivaled Wall Street experience and insight to a new digital world of investor communications and engagement. Our research and investor content is distributed across traditional research aggregators like Bloomberg, FactSet, etc., proprietary direct distribution lists, social media, search engines, and our website. As a result, every institutional and retail investor has equal access to our high-quality company research. Our mission is to help companies take control of their IR program and proactively reach investors while bringing investors a consistent flow of quality information to help them understand our clients' businesses, industries, and the investment opportunities they present. Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Water Tower Research (WTR) Adds Paul Meeks as Managing Director
Water Tower Research LLC ( is modernizing IR with a powerfully differentiated ecosystem of investor relations services, research-driven content and communications, and investor engagement. Water Tower Research is pleased to announce that Paul Meeks has joined the firm as Managing Director. St. Petersburg, FL, June 04, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Water Tower Research LLC ( is modernizing IR with a powerfully differentiated ecosystem of investor relations services, research-driven content and communications, and investor engagement. Water Tower Research is pleased to announce that Paul Meeks has joined the firm as Managing Director. Shawn Severson, WTR CEO and Co-Founder, said, 'We are pleased to welcome Paul to Water Tower Research as the newest member of our expanding Technology Team. Paul brings deep expertise in investment management and a distinguished track record of insight into the technology sector. His perspective will further strengthen our already outstanding team, joining Dr. John Roy and Kunal Madhukar in delivering industry-leading research and thought leadership. As we continue to grow our coverage across dynamic and innovative technology companies, Paul's contributions will be instrumental in broadening our reach and delivering even greater value to investors. At Water Tower Research, our mission is to democratize access to high-quality equity research—helping all investors uncover new opportunities and understand the key trends, companies, and catalysts shaping the future of tech.' Paul Meeks is a Managing Director on the Technology team at Water Tower Research. He brings more than 30 years of buy-side experience to WTR as an institutional investment analyst, portfolio manager, research director, and chief investment officer. Paul is widely recognized for having launched and managed $8 billion in technology funds for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, among the largest technology-focused funds during the dot-com era. The fund was acquired by BlackRock in 2006. He has also held management positions with Jurika and Voyles, NMH Advisors, and Saturna Capital. Paul started his career at Trinity Investment Management in Boston. He currently holds management positions with Harvest Portfolio Management and 17 Asset Management. Paul is also a well-respected commentator and recognized technology expert. He has appeared weekly on air in the business media to 'talk tech' since 1995 and is recognized as CNBC's 'Tech Guru'. Paul also hosts 'Tech Tune-Up with Paul Meeks' each week on Benzinga's YouTube channel. Over the last 20 years, Paul has also served as an adjunct or full-time professor of finance and accounting at three universities, most recently at The Citadel's Baker School of Business where he raised $2 million for and was faculty advisor to the Student Managed Investment Fund. Paul earned bachelor's degrees in history and political science from Williams College and holds an MM (MBA) from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He is a CFA charterholder and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA). About Water Tower Research Water Tower Research is modernizing Investor Relations through research-driven communications and Investor Engagement. Sound investment research begins with good information. At WTR, we help companies and investors connect by creating expert information flow and strategies that are the foundation of a successful modern investor relations platform. Our analysts and capital markets professionals bring decades of unrivaled Wall Street experience and insight to a new digital world of investor communications and engagement. Our research and investor content is distributed across traditional research aggregators like Bloomberg, FactSet, etc., proprietary direct distribution lists, social media, search engines, and our website. As a result, every institutional and retail investor has equal access to our high-quality company research. Our mission is to help companies take control of their IR program and proactively reach investors while bringing investors a consistent flow of quality information to help them understand our clients' businesses, industries, and the investment opportunities they present. CONTACT: Name: Water Tower Research LLC Email: research@ Job Title: WTR Investor EngagementError in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why this Nvidia bull is 'anxious' ahead of earnings
Chipmakers are in focus ahead of Nvidia's (NVDA) earnings report, set to be released on Wednesday. KeyBanc Capital Markets equity research analyst John Vinh and Harvest Portfolio Management chief investment officer Paul Meeks join Morning Brief to examine the chipmaker space and discuss what to expect from Nvidia earnings. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here. Nvidia results do out Wednesday, they're going to offer some of the latest read on demand for semiconductors and the AI trade on Wall Street. But is Nvidia the only name in the game or is competition heating up? Joining us now, we've got Paul Meeks, CIO for Harvest Portfolio Management and John Vinh, Equity Research analyst for Key Bank Capital Markets, who has an overweight rating on Nvidia and a $190 price target. Great to have both of you here with us. John, I just want to start with you. Can Nvidia maintain its lead against rival chip makers? Yes, um, in the near to medium term, absolutely. They are ramping a new architecture called Blackwell, GB200, NVL 72. Um, you know, obviously there's some supply constraints related to the ramp, but it's a hardware plus GPU chip based solution that also integrates the the GPU into the CPU, which gives them a significant performance advantage over the competition. You know, the competition does have a roadmap that is expected to follow suit, but they're at least a year behind at this point. And Paul, I want to get you to weigh in on this too. Do you think that Nvidia retains its dominance, and if so, for for what period of time? I think that they will, and I agree that the manufacturing lead is at least a year, maybe longer. But as I think about what this company is going to say on Wednesday, I must say, particularly with the rebound that the stock has had all the way back to 134 with the all-time high being 150-ish, I'm a little bit worried that although they will most likely not just meet but beat slightly, will that be enough to appease Wall Street? And remember, part of the thesis here was their revenues were going to rapidly reaccelerate in the second half of this year. With all the geopolitical turbulence, I don't know if that's the case. And so what I do is I hold my stock, it's still my biggest position, but I am a little bit anxious going into this report. Just to follow on that, Paul, what would you what would you need to see from a chip that actually appeals and appeases some of the requirements now in place, especially as Nvidia is planning for this China specific AI chip that might be a little cheaper? So I'm glad that they have that chip because if it is allowed to pass through the sensors, I.e. the regulators, then that's a good thing. It's better to have some revenue at whatever gross margin versus none. But I need to see the company guide to revenue acceleration and also, are we at the trough of the gross margin hit? They took a gross margin hit due to ramping up manufacturing. All semiconductor companies do that. But I'm now thinking that the hit to gross margins might be pushed another quarter out. These are all transitory issues. They are not long-term or secular issues. So I still like it long-term, but those are some of my near-term concerns, Brett. And John, I want to get you to weigh in as well on this idea that Nvidia is developing some kind of alternative that it will be able to sell in China. Um, do you think we'll get news about that more specifically tomorrow? And if so, how much revenue do you think they can recoup? Yeah, I think we'll get some color on the call. Obviously, it's going to be a key focus on the call in terms of, you know, what's happening within China. Uh, so we do think that they are working on another China compliant chip. This uh, this new chip does not use high bandwidth memory, so there should not be any sort of regulatory issues with it. I mean, this chip is effectively similar to a workstation chip. Um, the issue is it's not going to fully make them whole and backfill. If you look at the $5.5 billion write off, it roughly translates into a $12 billion headwind. We think with the lower ASPs on this new chip, they can probably backfill 8 of that 12 billion at this point. And so as you're thinking going forward here, the most investible AI play is, is it still Nvidia or and I ask that specifically, John, thinking about how far we've run thus far? Or is there another semiconductor play that has larger upside potential at this point, even though Nvidia has been the poster child? Yeah, I don't think it's an either or decision at this point, but our favorite AI plays right now are going to be Nvidia and Broadcom. Right. Thematically, if you think about Nvidia, they're clearly the leader on the merchant AI chip side. Um, Broadcom is the leader on the custom AI silicon side, right? Obviously, their big customer there is Google with the TPU franchise and you know, at this point, you know, you're seeing both uh, both types of chips get significant amount of capex spend devoted behind them in terms of spending. So, and they're clearly the two leaders in the space at this point. Um, Paul, I think John brings up an interesting point, which is that it's not necessarily zero sum, right? Even though Nvidia has been very dominant, you know, how much room is there for other players to also do very well? And more to the point, to be a good buy right now? Well, I think there's a lot of room for players to be great, but the problem is, can you execute to close that what I think is about a year and a half of manufacturing gap. And so the demand will be there, the demand will be voracious, and I do think AMD will ramp up and be a strong number two player, but as I start to winnow down my AI hardware and semiconductor bets, I still come to, as John said, Broadcom, Nvidia, then I would add for my big three Taiwan Semiconductor. John, Paul, thank you so much. I know that you guys will be watching those numbers very closely tomorrow afternoon, as will we. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Great, thanks for having us. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why a Cautious, Longtime Investor Is Rather Bullish on NVDA
Harvest Portfolio Management Chief Investment Officer Paul Meeks is cautious on the Mag 7 overall, suggesting that investors not buy any of the names until after they report their first-quarter earnings. Moreover, he does not believe that any of the companies will have much confidence in their outlooks, and he does not expect AI to be widely used until 2027. But in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, the veteran investor explained why he's quite bullish on NVDA. Nvidia Has a Low Valuation, Strong Demand NVDA "never got to a stretched valuation," and the demand for its products remains "voracious," Meeks believes. In general, the company should continue to deliver strong results, and the shares "should be pretty attractive, even for value investors," Meeks contended. But he did warn that analysts' estimates for the company could drop "a little" as the large cloud-infrastructure companies reduce their AI outlays and the tariffs on China take a toll on NVDA. The Recent Performance of NVDA Stock In the last month, the shares have dropped 5%, while they are down 28% in the last three months. While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why this tech investor is on a buying strike
Harvest Portfolio Management chief investment officer and Wall Street Beats partner Paul Meeks is on a self-described tech stock buying strike. Meeks joins Wealth with Julie Hyman to explain why, discuss macro conditions, examine the tech landscape, and watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here. Our next guest is a tech investor on a self-declared buyer's strike, but he does say he's still bullish on the AI infrastructure trade. Paul Meeks, Harvest Portfolio Management CIO and Wall Street Beats partner, joining me now. Paul, it's great to see you, as always here. You have been on a buyer strike before when we talked. I feel I feel like 2022 vibes is what I'm getting from you at this point. What's driving that buyer strike for large cap tech? Well, I'm not necessarily worried about the AI infrastructure trade and how we might be at a peak AI infrastructure spend. What I'm more worried about, and this is reflected more in my technical analysis than in my fundamental analysis, is the chance that the current policies pursued here in the United States could lead us to a recession. And if we have a recession, I don't want to say all bets are off. There'll be good buying opportunities among the carnage in that situation, but that's my greatest fear. Um, and what do you think the likelihood of that recession is? I mean, most of the base case forecast we're hearing from economists is that there'll be a slowdown, um, but either way, how is that going to play out for large cap tech? Well, it depends within large cap tech, are you consumer-facing or enterprise-facing company. If you have a company like Apple, which is essentially dominant in consumer electronics, uh they might be under pressure as the American Sumer consumer and other consumers around the world pull in on such spending. But on the enterprise side, we'll see what happens. I think when we have our hyperscalers report their results, and they'll be coming in the next three or four weeks, I think they will confirm their capital expenditures for 2025, which is really foremost for AI infrastructure and continued data center build and large language model building and inference for AI. So I am hoping, I'm expecting, unless we have a real dour outlook on the economy between now and then, probably triggered by liberation day, that uh we should have a little bit of a pop in these stocks, a little bit of a recovery when those companies confirm their AI spending, and they'll probably do that within a month from now. And and Paul, our executive editor Brian Sozzi had the chance to speak with AMD CEO Lisa Su about the potential for a slowdown in AI infrastructure spend. Here's what she told him. There is no question we are in the very early innings of AI. Now, you know, put some of the noise aside. So I am a big believer in this is the very, very early part of AI. Uh the need for compute continues to be immense. Uh we see that throughout all of our customers globally, and we're going to continue to invest strongly in this area because I think this is the single most important technology. I like to say it's the single most important technology of the last 50 years. Paul, um, you know, I I feel like we keep hearing this and I feel like we're it's not quite been realized. As she said, it's very early innings. I get it. Um, but when are we going to get to like even the second inning or the third inning in this situation? Well, of course, whenever you talk to these tech CEOs, and I really admire Dr. Lisa Su for turning around AMD. She's absolutely brilliant. But they're always going to talk their book to an extent, right? That's just PR and IR. But I think that we're going to have an extended period of large language model building. Uh we are starting to see some glimpses of inference and once we get through the inference pipeline, then we'll see some hopefully pretty cool AI agents and AI apps. But unfortunately, when it comes to monetizing those agents and apps, I still think it's not a 2025 phenomenon. It might actually be next year. Um, and let's drill down on Nvidia for a second here because I know going back to the beginning, you said even if you fundamentally believe in the case for some of these stocks, technically it's tough. So let's drill down on Nvidia. What level are you watching there? How far down does it need to go before you think it it does get attractive here? Well, I think valuation wise and fundamentally, it's very attractive. Um, I was hoping for some stability around 104, 105. We're trading right there right now. But uh, I'm not going to do anything before liberation day and all that uh hubbub. But I'm thinking 90 to 104, 105, where it's actually trading today, is attractive. Please don't buy it for the short term. We're not going to get a confirmation of how good their fundamentals are, probably until late in the month of May. And so make sure that you buy it for the long term, but I agree that it's going to be a big, big hit from here. And I'm very comfortable owning it for the long term at that uh dip-in price level. Got you. Paul, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Good to see you. Sign in to access your portfolio
