Shopify Inc.SHOP.TODON'T BUYSep 30, 2024Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jul 10, 2026. Market Open.
200-day MA starting to trend a bit lower, price is also below that. High multiple at 60x forward PE, though growth rate is strong, but PEG a bit rich at around 2x. Leaves little room for error. Caters to economically sensitive small-middle companies. AI is both opportunity and risk.
Better opportunities elsewhere.
Are different: CSU buys companies vs. Shopify which is a pure tech company. What PE do you want to pay for CSU? 25x? 20x? SHOP is great and continues to grow. The market perception of AI hurting these companies is wrong. Both are worth buying. He prefers CSU but buy it at a lower PE.
Has never owned. 200-day MA just started to roll over, and that's not positive. Price now below 200-day MA. It's always been pricey (9x forward price-to-sales). Tech and general market have been up, but this name's down 4.3% over 12 months. Catering to small-middle businesses makes it riskier vis-a-vis the economy.
If you're already in it, watch to see if it breaks recent lows of support. So many other names out there with much better valuations.
Still some runway. Tarred with the software brush. A proud Canadian all-star. Buy in 3 tranches: here, ~$105, and ~$100 (that would indicate it's getting to the bottom). If you own now, add on weakness as outlined.
Note: Not in his fund, but in some separately managed accounts.
Right here, right now is a good entry point for a long-term hold. Part of the AI witch-hunt trade. Competitive moat won't be eroded by agentic AI. People don't understand that writing code is not "one and done", not to mention cybersecurity concerns and complex payment systems.
Increasingly catering to larger customers. Continues to innovate and to add value to legacy markets.
Great run. If you believe that e-commerce retail has a lot of legs (which he does), there are other ways to express that view. SHOP is stuck in the middle. Doubled off bottom, but faces structural issues of having to go up-market to enterprise customers, and AMZN is already there.
Moving up from micro-merchant is easier said than done. Being the UI layer and the feature layer is the most vulnerable part of the value chain that is global e-commerce. Tactically, he'd own AMZN.