Evercore Partners

So as I looked through the prospectus, I was able to pull up the numbers used by both bankers here.

Remember again that in this case, Evercore is working for Tesla's board and Lazard is working for SolarCity's board.

And here's the essence of what they need to do.

The exchange ratio set in this merger is 0.11 shares of Tesla.

for every share of SolarCity, right? So if you're Evercore, you have to convince Tesla shareholders that that 0.11 is really a low number, that they should be really paying much more, 0.12 or 0.13.

So Evercore's task is to come up with numbers that will tell you that 0.11 is a low number, that you're getting a good deal as a Tesla shareholder.

Lazard's task is the exact opposite.

They need to convince Lazard shareholders that the 0.11 is a high number, that Tesla is actually overpaying for them because the true exchange ratio is much lower, 0.09, 0.08, or 0.07.

When you look at evaluation, you can already see what's going to come just based on the motives.

One reason that Tesla SolarCity set up, I mean, after all, it's supposed to be fairness opinions, right? And if you look at the competition, the very last row on the table that I put up for the two, there's Evercore and Lazard working for the two sides.

And at the bottom, I listed out how they were being paid.

I'll give you what Evercore is being paid, $1.25 million.

You say, that's not very much.

The amount of work that went into their valuation, that's probably like 125,000 an hour.

And in the wrong hands, A DCF can be played with to deliver results that are not fair.

In fact, on the back of the single page you got today, I've given you a template on how to hide bias in a DCF.

It's fifth straight positive day as investors rotate back into some of these high beta AI stocks.

Evercore upgrading Ciena to outperform, saying its total addressable market is growing as networking becomes the latest bottleneck in the AI build out.

The analyst also writing Ciena has multiple avenues for growth and sees margin expansion ahead.

You can see other networking names catching a bit as well today.

And so that's why you're seeing shares almost 3% lower.

Shares of Ciena, though, pop and higher after an upgrade from Evercore to Outperform, the firm calling Ciena an attractive way to gain exposure specifically to the optical networking space, especially as the AI infrastructure build-out continues.

That's why shares are up over 4%, Dom.

All

One analyst is so stoked over new iPhones and wearables to a lesser extent that they've actually raised their price target on Apple shares.

Turning again to Apple 3.0, we find Evercore analyst Ahmed Daryanani liking what he's seeing in intent-to-buy surveys.

According to those, 32% of respondents plan to buy an iPhone 18 Pro Max versus 29% for last year's 17 Pro Max.

14% plan to buy an iPhone Duo versus 9% for last year's iPhone Air.

If I got to sit home and watch Netflix and chill for a few months, I'm doing it because I don't want to spend $200 to fill up my truck.

I don't want to go over here and rent a vehicle and uh you know have to pay more for for airfare and then rent a car that's gonna be you know more in fuel to you know maybe go spend more and more money wherever you go because food eating out dining out is through the roof so i don't want to do it so maybe like a netflix works but again you've got wells fargo they came out on friday thursday or friday and said hey no This ain't going to 100 Evercore.

Evercore came out and said, what was their price? They said 110, right? Well, then Wells Fargo comes out and says, no, that's a $57 stock.

Well, yeah, they had 2% membership gain.

But I don't think it's going to 57.

Getting back to today's headlines...

Evercore ISI upgraded the networking provider Sienna to buy from hold.

Price target went up from $375 to $550.

Stock is up 6% today.

Evercore thinks that Sienna could keep growing sales by 30% and earnings by more than 35%.

That would be very good AI pacing, if you will.

I'm going to talk more about the optical networking companies, Microsoft and CrowdStrike as well.

and so many headlines that pivot in tone and sentiment daily that creating a near-term trading thesis for this notoriously volatile sector seems to be a fool's errand, unquote.

Evercore ISI analyst Jonathan Chappell wrote in late July, he said that while he does not know when the Iran conflict will end, he does see substantial downside risk.

The rise in oil prices and tanker costs is, quote, not supported by true fundamental factors, unquote.

And yet investors have turned outrageously bullish, quote, which is likely to only exacerbate the reversion risk that is only a matter of when, not if, he explained.