UFC fans get excited, LRS is the Aussie stock to watch and … the big US names report

Ultimate Fighting Championship fans now have the opportunity to invest in the company that owns their favourite sport.

Endeavor Group Holdings Inc, the owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) raised US$511M (AU$656) in an initial public offering (IPO) at the high end of the target range.

It listed on the NYSE on Thursday under the ticker EDR.

Endeavor priced 21.3 million shares at $24 per share, with the IPO valuing the company at US10.3BN.

That kind of money could fund a lot of fights.

Endeavor first endeavoured to list in 2019, but withdrew due to poor investor demand.

However, it seems as the popularity of the sport increased, so too did investor interest.

Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk is joining the Board of Directors ) perhaps he can invent Tesla Transformers to face off in the cage.

Endeavor is run by Hollywood power broker Ari Emanuel, whose talent agency WME counts celebrities such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova among its top-tier clients.

It has financed movies including La La Land and Just Mercy and now plans to make a run for full of ownership of UFC. Endeavour will seek to acquire the remaining 49.9% stake from private-equity firms KKR and Silver Lake.

Can someone smell what The Rock is cooking?

The ASX stock to watch

Latin Resources (ASX:LRS) is edging closer to a major catalyst and is just a few weeks away from delivering its maiden JORC Mineral Resource Estimate.

The Estimate is on track to be completed in May and could provide LRS with significant share price momentum once released.

Drilling assays so far have indicated that LRS’s project is comparable - if not better - than standout success Andromeda Metals.

The $496M capped Andromeda was one of the best performing stocks on the ASX last year and is a great example of how a micro cap explorer can unlock serious value in a halloysite project.

LRS is capped at just $63M.

LRS’s WA-based Noombenberry project is one of Australia’s few known occurrences of ultra-high-grade halloysite – a naturally occurring nanotube.

LRS has $4.5M in the bank as of December, with over $1.3 million received from the early exercise of options in CY 2021 to date. This means its work programs remain fully funded.

LRS has had a very strong week on the back of this week’s news, starting at 4.7 cents on Monday, hitting a high of 7.5 cents before settling at 6.8 cents.

Read: 🏹 MAJOR CATALYST ALERT: JORC Resource Estimate Lands in a Few Weeks

What’s going on O/S

As we do each week, we caught up with an eToro analyst to find out what’s going on with a few international stocks.

Here is Josh Gilbert’s take.

1. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon announced its Q1 earnings of US$15.79 per share on revenue of US$108.52 billion, compared to analyst expectations of US$9.56 per share on revenue of US$104.65 billion.

The company’s last earnings report was overshadowed by the headline news that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos would move into the role of executive chairman and be replaced by Amazon Web Services (AWS) boss Andy Jassy. The company also delivered its largest quarter by revenue of all-time at US$125.56 billion, but despite this, the share price still fell by 3 per cent on the news Bezos was stepping aside.

Demand for Amazon’s eCommerce services has increased over the last year, with most consumers opting to buy their goods online over heading into a brick-and-mortar store. As Amazon continues to grow its business, from streaming services to eCommerce and groceries, its revenues continue to surge, with a 44 per cent increase YOY.

It seems nothing can slow down Amazon’s sales growth at the moment, even with its CEO Jeff Bezos stepping aside. Its AWS cloud services offering also crushed expectations again, delivering 32 per cent growth.

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR)

Twitter revealed its Q1 earnings of US$0.16 per share on revenue of US$1.04 billion, compared to analyst expectations of US$0.14 per share on revenue of US$1.03 billion.

Twitter’s focal point is its user base and how fast this number is growing, as this is a crucial metric to attract advertisers to the platform. Its user base growth started to slow throughout the end of 2020, declining from 34 per cent YOY growth in Q2, to as low as 27 per cent in Q4. This number fell once again, with growth at only 20 per cent YOY.

Twitter is a unique platform with millions of engaged users, which means there are endless opportunities for the company to expand its digital advertising footprint. When comparing its advertising revenue in Q4 to Facebook, Twitter is falling behind with only US$1 billion, whereas Facebook generated US$27 billion in advertising. Investors will hope to see further growth from Twitter’s digital advertising moving forward.

Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM)

Australia’s very own Atlassian published its FQ3 earnings of US$0.48 per share on revenue of US$568.78 million, compared to analyst expectations of US$0.29 per share on revenue of USD$531.92 million.

Atlassian enjoyed a robust year in 2020, with its share price climbing around 58 per cent. The company's software became a core focus for small businesses throughout the pandemic, as it allowed teams to work more efficiently. Profits from this quarter demonstrate just how powerful this last year has been for Atlassian, with a 92 per cent increase in earnings per share YOY.

Competition from the likes of Salesforce, Microsoft, and Alphabet mean Atlassian may struggle to sustain its growth from 2020. Atlassian announced its record revenues in this quarter and grew its total customers to 194,000, the highest number ever from the Australian-based tech company.

Although Atlassian’s growth will slow eventually, the last year has enabled them to turn a significant profit and grow its balance sheet. This puts the company in a much stronger position to further innovate its products and offerings, ready for the business masses, going forward.