Brian Nelson

Software: Adobe Keeps Rolling; Oracle Hit by Venezuela Forex Issues

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On Thursday, Adobe (ADBE) put up better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter performance and issued a strong outlook, while Oracle’s (ORCL) fiscal third-quarter results faced currency challenges and its forward guidance came in about as expected. Adobe achieved revenue of $1 billion, at the high end of the targeted range (and above consensus), and exited the fiscal first quarter with an impressive 1.84 million paid Creative Cloud subscriptions, an increase of 405,000 on a sequential basis. Adobe Marketing Cloud quarterly revenue jumped 24% during the period, to $267 million, a nice showing. Diluted earnings per share on a non-GAAP basis came in at $0.30, beating the consensus figure by $0.05. The fiscal first-quarter results were solid, but the company’s outlook was even better. … Read more

Tiffany and Nike Disappoint in China

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Valuentum previously outlined the importance of brand strength in its comprehensive piece: “Valuentum’s Comprehensive Report on Retail Brands.” This article will focus on Tiffany’s (TIF) and Nike’s (NKE) performance in the Asia-Pacific, and where applicable, China, a country that we believe is vital for long-term expansion and to support our fair value estimates of both firms. Recent reports have put a damper on the outlook for luxury spending in China during 2014. Though the outlook is consistent with data points we’ve received with respect to slowing, but still robust, economic expansion in China, the commentary is worth nothing: Wealthy Chinese are likely to buy fewer luxury goods again this year after the steepest cut-back on spending in at least five … Read more

Only One Bank Fails Fed’s Stress Test

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The banking industry is based almost entirely on the confidence of intermediaries and counterparties that make up the building blocks of the financial system. An investment in a bank or money center must come with the acknowledgement of the distinct possibility that another financial crisis may occur at an unknown time in the future. Though we don’t expect one anytime soon, it’s worth noting that there have been three significant banking crises during the past three decades alone: the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s/early 1990s; the fall of Long-Term Capital Management and the Russian/Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s; and the Great Recession of the last decade that not only toppled Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, … Read more

Baidu Dollars Likely Shifting to Alibaba Near Term; Raising Our Fair Value of Yahoo

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Valuentum previewed the valuation of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in October 2013. Today, we’ve updated our analysis of the company in the table below and have raised our intrinsic value estimate to approximately $100 billion from $75 billion previously. This revision has had a relatively large per-share upward re-valuation of the shares of 24%-owner Yahoo (YHOO) in its 16-page report. Softbank, which owns more than 35% of Alibaba, will also see a more optimistic slant towards its own valuation in coming periods. Our updated valuation details of Alibaba are shown below. The previous table had a typo regarding the long-term growth rate of the perpetuity calculation, which has been corrected in the table above. Though we think our forecasts are … Read more

Update: Digging Into the Valuentum Dividend Cushion

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Sign Up to Receive our Dividend Growth Newsletter! Add the High Yield Dividend Newsletter to Your Membership! History has revealed that the best performing stocks during the previous decades have been those that shelled out ever-increasing cash to shareholders in the form of dividends. In a recent study by Ned Davis Research, S&P 500 stocks that initiated dividends or grew them over time registered roughly a 9.6% annualized return since 1972 (through 2010), while stocks that did not pay out dividends or cut them performed poorly over the same time period.  Such analysis is difficult to ignore, and we believe investors may be well-rewarded in future periods by finding the best dividend-growth stocks out there. As such, we’ve developed a rigorous dividend investment … Read more

Carl Icahn Wants eBay to Spin Off PayPal in an IPO

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CARL C. ICAHN RELEASES STATEMENT ON EBAY (EBAY) IPO 20% of PayPal We believe eBay could easily conduct an Initial Public Offering of PayPal, selling 20% to the public. eBay would retain 80% of PayPal with control. Before the transaction is consummated the companies could enter into a long-term, commercially viable contract, preserving all synergies. This type of relationship is customary in partial IPOs and would be particularly important for eBay as currently, outside of PayPal, there does not exist a global payment processing solution competent enough to service eBay’s users. Luckily for PayPal, competitors such as Google, Apple and many others do not yet have the same comparable scale and product offerings. (source) Valuentum’s Take There are a variety … Read more

You Can’t Trust Anonymity; Einhorn Sues

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By Brian Nelson, CFA We’re writing this piece to make you aware of some troubling developments in this industry. The investment business, as we’ve highlighted many times in the past, is based on trust. During the past several years, there’s been an explosion of information overload on the worldwide web, and a lot of the financial and investment information is written by anonymous authors without analyst credentials and with unknown motives. We hold the belief that, if a writer cannot stand behind his work in his own name, then there’s something wrong. Not only are a lot of the articles on other financial websites written by biased and anonymous authors, but now at least one anonymous author has been dealing … Read more

Microsoft Almost Hits $40 Per Share

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We tell our members exactly what we mean. For those that watch the Dividend Growth portfolio closely and analyze our 16-page reports, you’re well aware that we’ve been pounding the table on Microsoft’s (MSFT) undervaluation for some time. Image Source: Valuentum  The software giant is just another great example of the process in action. In every 16-page report, the last page reveals the rating history on each company. Since the middle of 2012 (see below), we’ve been saying that Microsoft’s shares are going to buck the historical malaise and rise to $40+ on the basis of our fair value estimate. The software giant also registered a coveted 9 on the Valuentum Buying Index in September 2012. And its hefty dividend … Read more