March 11, 2011
Me-too shop BofA goes “Long-on-Women”
LoS has long been long-on-women ever since we learned that they were the only source for babies. According to years of research and field study, women have a de facto monopoly on having babies. And despite numerous damning letters we have sent outlining the grievous impact this monopoly has had and will continue to have on love markets, the FTC and other international regulatory bodies have shown no interest in taking any antitrust action against women. These agencies appear to be either corrupt or incompetent. Maybe, like the SEC, they are both.
Ultimately, we are not ideologues; we are handsome and incredible investors who lean towards real-world based pragmatism when investing our real fake dollars. And if you can’t break up a trust, you gotta go long it. We have been long women and their various body parts for years: ideas for “Pink Dollar” products for female drivers, long legs, short breast cancer (basically), short penis, playing the menstrual cycle, short girl-on-girl, sexual harassment arbitrage and probably most appropos, an analysis of high-end female assets. Hell, in a 2006 piece of research we did for MSFT, gratis, we exhorted the company to “change the packaging of [their products to appeal to women]“:
Change the packaging of your products. Very few women buy your products, Mr. Ballmer, and you are missing out on their money, or as we like to call it “the Pink Dollar.†You may assume that the key to attracting the Pink Dollar is to improve the content of your offering or to tailor your content to women. WRONG! Substance matters little to the average female. Focus instead on the superficial aspects. Make all your packaging pink, and have a little bow. They eat this crap up. Something that has worked for us on occasion is to put in a little note that says “Sorry.†You don’t have to specify what you are sorry for. It’s important to note that while it’s tempting to enclose a $100 bill, this will only insult and irritate the average female consumer.
Net-net women are a fantastic investment (with the caveat that if the baby making monopoly is broken up or the cephalopods enslave the human race (2026 is our best estimate for the latter), multiples will come in substantially). So we do not begrudge the me-too boutique bank/research firm, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), agreeing with our genius; we quibble instead with their failure to recognize and properly cite our genius. A sample of their report:
In continuing to focus on the “long-on-women†investment theme that explores the growing importance of female [assets], David Bianco, head of U.S. equity strategy research, said that [womenfolk’s illegal and terrible monopoly on baby production is]increasing discretionary income for women, which should benefit companies that sell specifically to women.
“Women may increasingly become the higher-income earners of U.S. households, and since they [tyrannically] make the bulk of household spending decisions as it is, we think their stronger purchasing power relative to men bodes well for spending on a wide range of categories from vacations to cosmetic procedures to home furnishings,†said Bianco.
Not a single mention of LoS or the other firms whose research they have cribbed.
Recommendation: Short BofA, for being bitches. Maintain long on women, for having all the power.