This Week in Charts 6-25-22
This edition of This Week in Charts was presented by Griffin Review technology analyst Grant Coultrup. More episodes of the Griffin Review can be found here, and sources are hyperlinked throughout.
This Week in Charts returns after a couple weeks in hiatus, so we’re going to narrow down the topics to some of the most interesting. In the news are the followings stories:
In corporate news: a slowdown in value creation by medical technology; survey shows that nurses want attention; and insight into well- or poorly-managed digitization.
In 3D printing news we will discuss the current state of the industry before examining three production opportunities to develop additive techniques.
In financial technology we investigate a couple instances of commercial financing, then track with contemporary SEC actions.
Corporate News
Creating value in medtech has become a challenge, particularly for large diversified companies. As an example, the top 30 cross-category companies in the industry have underperformed the S&P over one-, three-, and five-year periods. The light blue upward trend is the market’s movement; dark blue represents the entire medtech industry, and it seems that the larger organizations are struggling the most to create value. My analysis is that they’ve outgrown the small-team startup mentality, have gotten a bit fat and lazy, and are now struggling to deliver.
Frontline workers ranked greater recognition for their work and more breaks as helpful for well-being, according to a McKinsey survey of nurses in six countries. The increased availability of mental-health resources, however, was not perceived as important, with surveyed nurses across all geographies ranking it lowest among the top effective support initiatives.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to rapid and extreme digitization in many sectors, as organizations moved from technology enablement of legacy operations to full digitization. Meanwhile, 85 percent of respondents to a 2020 global survey of executives said their businesses have accelerated the use of technologies to enable digital employee collaboration.
State of the Industry
In our look at the 3D printing industry today, let’s first understand that this mode of manufacturing is in its beginning. Regarding market attitude, I believe that this industry has already experienced its “peak” if we’re observing a Dunning-Kruger effect. In 2013, many patents expired, inspiring many to believe that a period of intense development was nigh, and this was reflected by share prices. However, the development isn't as intense as initially suspected, and prices seem to have settled onto a long steady climb.
The industry is firmly rooted and will only grow from here while we can expect development costs to hold steady.
These opportunities are so compelling that President Biden announced an initiative will boost the use of 3D printing in domestic supply. The program, AM Forward, marks an exciting moment as future value is recognized. Our report today examines three specific areas which are expected to remain as staple applications of the additive industry.
Customized Products
This is no new news to additive manufacturing: with low variability costs, 3D printing swiftly became a powerful contender with products like hearing aids and orthodontics. Further applications will involve custom gear for athletes, clothing and equipment, prosthetics, and more.
Novel Designs
3D printing is a digitally driven process, achieving geometries impossible for other machines. Technical performance and durability were both affected positively. In one example, Rawlings developed a baseball glove without foam or wool pads in the fingers. Instead, 3D-printed elastomeric parts were inserted for a lighter, thinner, and more durable part.
Lower Volume
With an extremely low cost for variability, 3D printing is an ideal candidate for prototyping or testing the market with a low quantity of a product to test its viability.
These three advantages are unique to 3D printing as a method of manufacturing. If 3D printing interests you, follow 3D print.com and my own blog to get the pitch.
In our last episode, I spoke about Apple’s buy-now-pay-later program, and darn it if another group didn’t do the same thing! PayPal announces this week that its “Pay Monthly” program allows users to spend between $200-10,000 USD to be repaid on a flexible schedule. This just represents another organization willing to jump onto the financial services train.
The SEC faces a mammoth of a task: verifying the tax credits of qualifying ESG-centric entities. Chair Gary Gensler has demanded money managers explain the standards they use to label so-called “ESG” funds. Undoubtedly the investigation will reveal misconduct disguised as clever management.
Another report on small consumer financing reveals that more than 40% of those using a buy-now-pay-later program are financing their repayments with other borrowings. Claire Moriarty, chief executive of Citizen’s Advice, calls for regulation, saying, “... [BNPL] is a part of the credit industry, and must urgently be regulated as such.”
That’s all our information today. If you enjoyed any of these topics, let us know in the comments and join the discussion on Discord. As always thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week on This Week in Charts.
~ fïn ~
