Lendingtree
LendingTree Buys Back $100 Mln Of Outstanding 0.50% Senior NotesOnline financial platform, LendingTree, Inc. (TREE), Wednesday announced that it has repurchased 0.50% convertible senior notes worth approx. $100 million, which were issued in July 2020 and will be due in 2025.
The company has spent approx. $81.4 million in cash for this transaction. On Tuesday, LendingTree's stock closed at $19.62, down by 0.66%.
The company’s stock price has been in a bearish trend since reaching a 52-week high of $47.82 on January 28, 2023. The stock has been trading below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, indicating a lack of momentum and support. The stock also faces strong resistance at $21.35, which is the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level of the downtrend from January to November 2023.
However, the stock still faces significant challenges in the mid to long term, such as the declines in home revenue, the economic risks from the pandemic, and the competition from other online lending platforms . Therefore, the stock may not reach for the stars anytime soon.
My 5 / 30 EMA alert signal got triggered for $TREESo I initially set a 5 / 30 EMA crossover (up) signal alert for $TREE (Lending Tree) as it is one of the cyclical stocks where market has been rotating into.
It got triggered last night (or morning in Eastern time) and I immediately went in and bought a couple of LEAP based option calls for it. At this point in the day, $TREE was just about 290 only.
Little did I realize much later in mid-day that my profit on my option call ballooned to $3000 when $TREE jumped to $317.
LOL.
LendingTree: Bullish Technicals and Fundamentals ExplainedIn this analysis, I'll be providing an in-depth analysis on LendingTree, as well as an explanation on megaphone patterns and its bullish upside.
What is LendingTree Inc.?
Lendingtree (TREE) is a company that offers a platform for borrowers and multiple lenders, offering the opportunity for its users to find the best possible deal on their loans.
Business Model
- Users of TREE gain access to multiple loan offers, and TREE’s clients gain the benefit of a cost-efficient customer acquisition.
- Essentially, LendingTree is a platform where people shop for money.
- Lendingtree works with major banks such as Citibank, Wells Fargo, as well as mortgage brokers, p2p specialty finance institutions, and small businesses.
- Their clients’ pain point is that borrower acquisition is a key constraint to growth.
- They offer a personalized platform called My LendingTree in which users can track their financial credit and performance
- Their cumulative user growth has been increasing at an exponential rate
- One fact many people misunderstand is that LendingTree does not take a markup fee.
- Their revenue comes from the payments made by lenders (their institutional clients), who pay to join the LendingTree marketplace.
- TREE also gets paid by their clients when its users sign up for their loans or services.
- While mortgage loans are their main focus, they are expanding into areas of: personal loans, auto loans, business loans, student loans, credit cards, saving accounts, and home equity loans.
Financials
- LendingTree’s revenue has tripled to $1.1 Billion by the end of 2019, almost triple the revenue of 2016.
- They continue to demonstrate tremendous growth as consumers shop for mortgages over time
- While their revenue was dominantly mortgage based, they have managed to diversify into generating revenue from non-mortgage related loans and services.
- However, their operating expenses have also significantly increased due to huge marketing budgets, and their operating income is not as exponential as their revenue growth
- Their quarterly revenue changes have been showing inconsistencies, and reported negative earnings for 2020 Q2.
- However, the company demonstrates steady and strong free cash flow
Technical Analysis
- We can take a look at TREE’s weekly chart for long term insight
- To begin with, the chart is currently trading within a textbook megaphone pattern
- A megaphone pattern can be a continuation or reversal pattern depending on how prices react near the resistance
- This pattern demonstrates 5 distinct swings, each getting larger than the previous one,
- As demonstrated above, we are currently in the middle of the fifth swing
- We can see that a reverse head and shoulders pattern has been forming since the third swing.
- We have temporarily broken out of the descending trend line resistance (marked by the dotted blue line), and forming what seems to be the right shoulder
- The formation of the right shoulder can also be seen as a bullish flag pattern, where prices are consolidating before a breakout
- On the short term, we are consolidating below the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement resistance.
- We have tested the pivot line support, as prices look to break out
- Even if we see a rejection at the trend line resistance on the fifth swing, there is a 60% upside potential based on the megaphone pattern structure
Conclusion
With the Fed having said that interest rates will remain at near zero, and considering the fact that the US housing market is still in an uptrend, given that we see more recovery in the economy, we could anticipate huge growth for LendingTree as more users seek to get loans. The technicals demonstrated on LendingTree’s chart are also extremely bullish, making this stock a solid mid-term investment.
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Accumulation Zone Entry For $TREETREE As noted in my previous post on LendingTree (linked) this is a patient trade that requires a trader to display discipline and belief in the trading plan. The accumulation zone was noted as 285-270 in previous post, and this week TREE hit sub 285 for the first time on the pullback in formation of a true cup and handle pattern. I say "true" cup and handle because that--along with head and shoulders--are the most misused patterns I notice on this site. The true cup and handle is a continuation pattern that should occur at the top of an uptrend, and the handle portion should retrace about 2/3 of the cup depth. So, if you are looking to add to or get in TREE, I say now is the time. The handle bottom should coincide with the uptrend support line and the 125 moving avaerage, which this stock respects. First target will be 450ish, with the very real possibility of this stock ending up well over 500 in the next few years, macro conditions permitting. Happy hunting and GLTA!!
LENDBTC Latest Technical AnalysisWe are doing Analysis of LENDBTC on 1 Day Timeframe.
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Adil Khan