Member Articles

PCSK9 Woes Weigh on Amgen and Regeneron

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Image shown: Amgen and Regeneron have both meaningfully trailed the market since October of 2017.  The robustness of the clinical pipeline offers an important clue regarding the health and vitality of a biotech/pharma company, as the clinical pipeline is critical towards maintaining and growing the top line. One of the most promising, and dare-we-say, overhyped new treatments to enter the market is the PCSK9 cholesterol-lowering agents, with Amgen and Regeneron leading the pack. Let’s discuss the results of Regeneron’s treatment along with a discussion of the path forward for the treatment. By Alexander J. Poulos Amgen’s Repatha The PCSK9 class is delineating into two competing treatments with little to differentiate between the two products. The key to perhaps gaining a … Read more

Tesla’s Shares Get Hammered

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Tesla’s shares have been overpriced for some time, but the Valuentum Buying Index system didn’t raise a big red flag until mid-June of last year. Shares have been getting hammered. By Brian Nelson, CFA What more can we say about Tesla (TSLA) other that the stock, itself, may very well be made up of “castles in the air?” A tremendously debt-heavy balance sheet and considerable free-cash-flow burn shouldn’t have merited an equity market capitalization that it once had, and recent developments have moved to deflate some of its bubble. The future for Tesla is far from guaranteed, too, and it looks like autonomous driving may not be coming to a town near you anytime soon after all. A fatal crash … Read more

Value Investors Starting to Salivate Over Facebook’s Fall

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Image Source: DonkeyHotey Facebook is becoming a value investor’s dream: a stock with fantastic free cash flow generation and balance sheet health dealing with transient headline noise. We’re waiting for shares to start to turn upward before we would consider adding to the hypothetical weighting in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. They look cheap! By Brian Nelson, CFA Facebook’s (FB) fall from grace has been a dream come true for many value investors looking for a company with a pristine balance sheet and tremendous free cash flow generation. By a pristine balance sheet, we mean a huge net cash position (~$41.7 billion) and no debt. By tremendous free cash flow generation, we mean that Facebook hauled in $5.4 billion … Read more

Archive: Nelson’s “Off the Cuff” Video Series

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We hope you enjoyed the “Off the Cuff” video series, where President of Investment Research at Valuentum Brian Nelson talked in front of the camera for about 10 minutes each episode! The videos were purposely designed to be low-tech, we know – we call this “authen-tech.” We like that, and you should, too. These are not instructional videos. They are meant to be energetic, exciting, and a bit controversial. Nelson tells it how it is. That’s the only way. Follow up reading/videos provided. Videos filmed December and January 2017/2018. Don’t miss an episode! Episode 1 – North Korea, Indexing and ETFs (December 4, 2017): President of Investment Research Brian Nelson talks about the non-zero probability of nuclear war, lofty equity market valuations, … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending March 23

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending March 23. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week BBX Capital (BBX): now $0.01 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.0075. Children’s Place Retail Stores (PLCE): now $0.50 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.40. Cousins Properties (CUZ): now $0.065 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.06. CSB Bancorp (CSBB): now $0.24 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.22. Enduro Royalty Trust (NDRO): now $0.040499 per share monthly dividend, was $0.037125. Finjan Holdings (FNJN): now $0.08 per share quarterly … Read more

Trump Targets China with Tariffs

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Image: Shanghai, China (December 2016), Andrey Filippov Stock markets in the US are slowly building in the prospect of retaliation (a “trade war”) from China, as a result of President Trump’s new tariffs. We maintain our view that the stock market has been frothy for some time, and the recent volatility may just be the beginning of a reversion to normalized valuations, with or without concerns about global trade. By Brian Nelson, CFA The market may be using concerns about a “trade war” as a reason to sell overpriced stock. According to Factset, as of March 16, the forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500 is still over 17 times, one turn more than the 5-year average and nearly … Read more

AbbVie’s Product Concentration Risk Intensifies; Shares Yield ~3.9%

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AbbVie will not seek accelerated approval for what had been expected to be its next blockbuster drug, Rova-T, which had been investigated for third-line relapsed/refractory small cell lung cancer. The market is reacting negatively to the disappointment. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hopes had been high for the performance of a phase II study of AbbVie’s (ABBV) Rova-T (Rovalpituzumab Tesirine), an antibody conjugate targeting cancer stem cell-associated delta-like protein 3 (DLL3), but the results of the study “were not what (management) hoped for.” The company noted that, after consulting with the FDA, “it will not seek accelerated approval for Rova-T.” AbbVie’s stock was hammered on the disappointing news. Though AbbVie will continue to evaluate Rova-T in first and second-line small cell … Read more

General Mills’ Dividend Is Now of Questionable Health

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General Mills is stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the market is finally noticing. Its best dividend growth years have been behind it, but its recent dealings have put it in a rather precarious position heading into the next recession, the timing of which is the only uncertainty. The company has never been a consideration for inclusion in the simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio. By Brian Nelson, CFA On March 21, consumer staple General Mills (GIS) reported better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results that showed reported net sales advancing 2% and operating profit increasing 9%, both measures over the comparable period last year. Though the top and bottom-line numbers appeared to be solid (adjusted diluted earnings per share leapt … Read more

Our Reports on Stocks in the Biotech Industry

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Image Source: Celgene This listing has been discontinued. Please view the following links for our work on pharmaceutical stocks: Pharmaceuticals – Big: ABBV, ABT, AMGN, AZN, BMY, GSK, LLY, MRK, NVO, NVS, PFE, SNY Pharmaceuticals – Biotech/Generic: ALXN, AGN, BIIB, BMRN, CELG, GILD, MYL, REGN, TEVA, VRX, VRTX, ZTS Structure of the Biotechnology Industry Firms in the biotechnology industry face no certain future. Drug development is complex, difficult, and risky, and failure rates are high. Product development cycles are extended—approximately 10 to 15 years from discovery to market. A potential new medicine must undergo years of testing to establish safety/efficacy. Sales depend on reimbursement from third-party payers. Competition can be fierce when biosimilar products exist, though patents are material competitive advantages. We like the group on the … Read more

Avoiding Troubled Equities Such as General Electric

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The Valuentum process waits for a stock’s price to be moving higher before it is considered. The stock must not only be undervalued on both a discounted cash-flow basis and relative value basis, in our view, but the market must also believe that its true intrinsic value should be higher, too, as evidenced by a rising share price. The process is symmetrical. We also would wait for a company’s share price to break down before we may consider removing an overpriced stock. In some cases, the information contained in prices can even provide clues when to remove an underpriced stock, as in the case of General Electric. By Brian Nelson, CFA There should be no confusion. General Electric (GE) was … Read more