Image Source: Keith Allison

By Brian Nelson, CFA

We’re doing a lot of things right, but you (yes, you!) mean the world to our team. For best ideas, see the portfolio on page 8 of the Best Ideas Newsletter here (pdf). For best dividend growth ideas, see the portfolio on page 5 of the Dividend Growth Newsletter here (pdf). I want to make sure you have these at your fingertips. We appreciate your business so much!

We wrote up an analysis of ideas that were included in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio at the beginning of 2017. The ideas included in these respective portfolios are our best ideas for each respective strategy, with two distinctions 1) in the context of a portfolio setting and 2) within our existing coverage universe. These two distinctions are very relevant to investing and very important. In the context of a portfolio setting and within our existing coverage universe, you can always find our best ideas in the newsletter portfolios. The Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio is found on page 8 of the Best Ideas Newsletter and the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio is found on page 5 of the Dividend Growth Newsletter.

A review of the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio for this year, “How Have Our ‘Best Ideas’ Performed During 2017” showed that we hit a couple big clutch homeruns in the highest-weighted best ideas of Visa (V) and Apple (AAPL). Tell us you knew that Visa and Apple were our two favorite best ideas. There were also many other ideas that did really well in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, too. You should read the article. A review of the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio for this year, “How Have Our Best ‘Dividend Growth Ideas’ Performed During 2017” showed that our top two dividend growth ideas in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Intel (INTC) doubled the returns of a diversified dividend growth ETF. Tell us you knew that Johnson & Johnson and Intel were our two favorite dividend growth ideas. Many other dividend growth ideas did very well, too. Have a read of those two articles, if you haven’t already.

I can’t begin to thank you for your support these many years. I really, truly mean that. I wrote a piece a couple weeks ago outlining the prices that other research firms charge for investment research--some charge $40,000 per year in some cases, for basic research and just a few hours of access to the analyst team, “The Price of Good Investment Research?” Yes, that’s the price; that’s the cost of covering all these companies we do. I’m not kidding you. For good research, it takes analysts a lot of time to form their conclusions, to surface ideas that they think will work out. My goodness – anyone can write up an idea. It’s the judgment behind it that matters. That makes all the difference in the world! The industry is finally unbundling trading commissions with the costs of doing investment research, and we like the trend!

In some ways, investors are finally starting to get a sense for the sweat (and mostly tears) it takes to produce a high-quality investment research product, and to no surprise, many shops are closing and laying off analysts. I promise that I will never charge as much as $40,000 per year for our services, even for what I believe to be higher-quality research in Valuentum. All I ask is for you to keep our costs low, too – make sure your payments don’t skip in PayPal, read our work in its entirety, understand how we fit into the financial industry, don’t ask us for buy/sell advice because we can’t give it, and the like. You also can let us know how good of a job we’re doing every now and then, too. 😊 I appreciate that so much -- so let us know that you knew about Visa and Apple, and Johnson & Johnson and Intel! They should be hard to miss, but the changes in 2018 to the newsletters will make our best ideas even more prominent.

Have you heard the big news?! We’re excited about the brand new High Yield Dividend Newsletter, as we think it fills a huge void in our research product. Yes, that’s right. We’re now doing high yield! Where the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio focuses on ideas that we think will have strong dividend growth potential in coming years (and filtered in a portfolio context and sourced from companies in our coverage universe), the new High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio will capture ideas with much HIGHER YIELDS, even though they may not be able to grow their dividends/distributions as fast as those with tremendous dividend growth prospects. As we gear up for the first edition of the High Yield Dividend Newsletter, to be released January 1, 2018, I can’t be more excited about the new offering. Because we’ll be adding incremental analyst resources to this product, this newsletter is an add-on to the membership; add it to your membership here.

You love hard work – and I applaud you for that -- and many of you have asked us for more work, too. I love doing the best I can to deliver. I’m excited about new requests as they often benefit all members. In May 2016, we announced that we would launch the Nelson Exclusive publication. The ideas in the Nelson Exclusive publication differ from the best ideas in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and the best dividend growth ideas in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio in two distinct ways: the ideas in the Nelson Exclusive publication are sourced from outside our vast coverage universe, and they are not put together in the context of a portfolio setting, meaning that the product has a different focus and helps readers find ideas beyond those we currently cover.

Because we are going above and beyond our existing coverage, the Nelson Exclusive is all incremental work beyond the hundreds of stocks we already cover in 16-page and dividend format. That’s why it’s incremental; that’s why there’s a cost to it. We’re going above and beyond for members to meet requests, and I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate the support. For those looking for an income idea, a capital appreciation idea and a short idea consideration outside the portfolio context and ones sourced from outside our traditional coverage universe, the Nelson Exclusive publication is quite the add-on. Make it happen. Subscribe here if you haven’t already -- and tell us more that we can do, and we’ll do our best to make it happen. You know the Valuentum quality. You know we don’t take short cuts, and you know we don’t throw out ideas just for the sake of throwing out ideas.

We’re also making the existing individual premium membership that much more valuable, too. Please read page 7 of the November edition of the Best Ideas Newsletter here (pdf). For starters, we are expanding and optimizing our stock coverage universe. In addition to the 16-page stock reports, dividend reports, and ETF reports, we will now be publishing more thematic coverage in pdf fashion on the stock and ETF symbol pages. This will allow us to provide even more breadth of coverage as we continue to focus on enhancing the depth of analysis. We believe this optimization will be a valuable improvement for members, regardless of which membership plan you are on.

We are optimizing how we communicate our best ideas in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and how we communicate our best dividend growth ideas in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio.

We think we can better rank our best ideas and best dividend growth ideas in a list-with-weightings for these newsletters. Visa is a prime example as to why we will be migrating to list-with-weighting format with these two newsletters. Visa’s stock continues to reach new highs, but even though it is the top-weighted stock in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, many may not take that to mean it is one of our very favorites. We cover so many companies that Visa might get lost.

The list-and-weighting format in the newsletters, which will include ideas currently in the respective simulated newsletter portfolios, will begin with the editions of the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter in January 2018. We will close the calculations of the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio effective December 31, 2017.

We will publish analysis of the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter simulated portfolios in the coming months, and we’ll continue to direct our attention to the existing ideas currently in the simulated portfolios, but the portfolios will now be in list-and-weighting format. Stocks will still be added and removed from the lists as needed, so you won’t miss any changes in our thoughts or theses on ideas.

The goal of the Best Ideas Newsletter list will be to source interesting ideas with capital appreciation potential from within our coverage universe. The goal of the Dividend Growth Newsletter list will be to source interesting ideas with strong dividend-growth potential from within our coverage universe. [Please evaluate our new High Yield Dividend Newsletter for higher-yielding ideas.]

We’ll also be launching a new data product that combines our archived data into one document. Please contact us if you are interested in receiving this. Many of our members love data, and we have it! We understand that the Internet has confused just about everybody about the true cost of fantastic research and tremendous idea generation, but I hope this article clarifies things. I’m looking forward to a very exciting 2018, even though the market environment is fraught with tremendous risk! Oh…and how about our call (article and newsletter alert email) on General Electric (GE)…that’s what I call timely. Yes, this one from May 15: “Newsletter Alert: Title Withheld – Members Only.” Let us know you see the difference when you're with Valuentum. Many thanks!