Member Articles

Treasury Erects Iron Tax Curtain

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Image Description/Source: Berlin Wall, 1963; Roger “If history is any guide, it would seem that tax lawmakers may want to think about the current political agenda’s similarities with respect to that of a “new” Berlin Wall–not one built of barbed wire but of prohibitive, restrictive tax laws–and whether such measures make sense in light of the events of the late 1980s.” – Valuentum Securities Late Monday April 4, the US Department of the Treasury launched an all-out attack on companies pursuing tax inversion deals and a technique called earnings stripping, the latter used as a means to minimize taxes after an inversion. Stating in no uncertain terms that such companies have only been successful due to the “benefits of being based … Read more

GE Pulls Back From 8-Year High, Russia Still Pumping

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By Brian Nelson, CFA The last week of each calendar quarter is often a busy one for the Valuentum team. Not only did we release the Dividend Growth Newsletter on the first of the month (download ), but we also released the financial advisor publications as well (see here). If you haven’t received them, please be sure to let our team know, and we’ll forward those along to you. These documents just scratch the surface of our research and analysis offering. Please don’t forget to RSVP for an upcoming orientation webinar here. We also wanted to make you aware of the update cycle for our ETF analysis. We’ve now released the 2016 versions for the Consumer Staples (), Consumer Discretionary … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending April 1

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TJX raised its quarterly dividend 24% March 29. Image Source: Mike Mozart Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending April 1. 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 Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK): now $0.155 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.15. Banner (BANR): now $0.21 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.18. City Holding (CHCO): now $0.43 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.42. Dollarama (DLMAF): now $0.10 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.09. Glacier Bancorp (GBCI): now $0.20 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Don’t Be Tempted By Homebuilders’ Dividends

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Image Source: Toll Brothers By Kris Rosemann The underproduction of homes since 2008 has created pent-up demand, providing a material tailwind for homebuilders as of late. According to estimates from Toll Brothers (TOL), the total estimated shortfall of housing starts from the period 2008-2014 was 5.7 million. That equates to an annual shortfall in production of ~818,000 new homes, providing significant opportunities for the homebuilding group as a whole moving forward. Pent-up housing demand has been accruing for years, and stronger general economic conditions, including lower unemployment, modest wage growth, and general consumer confidence continue to drive demand. A favorable jobs/wage market has the potential to provide a material boost for homebuilders, and additional demand could be found in the … Read more

Oracle Remains Confident on Transition to Cloud

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Image Source: Peter Kaminski By Kris Rosemann Oracle (ORCL) is still working to transform its operations to a cloud-based business model, but it is already selling more new software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) annually recurring cloud revenue than any other company in the world, including key competitors Salesforce.com (CRM) and Workday (WDAY). Oracle competes in large SaaS markets that Salesforce.com does not, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Human Capital Management (HCM). After many years of developing the most complete ERP suite in the cloud, Oracle Fusion ERP is the overall market leader in the enterprise cloud ERP market. The firm has more than 10 times the number of ERP customers than Workday, … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending March 25

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Image shown: Raytheon’s 800XP Hawker; source: Eric Salard. Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending March 25. 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 8point3 Energy Partners (CAFD): now $0.2246 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.217. ALPS Alerian Energy Infrastructure ETF (ENFR): now $0.254616 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.0625. ALPS Cohen & Steers Global Realty Majors ETF (GRI): now $0.369625 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.21087. ALPS Emerging Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (EDOG): now $0.11799 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.117604. … Read more

Confession: “Valuation Awareness” Is Everything

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Image Source: John Morgan “Much like anyone that has never played baseball won’t be able to recognize a curveball by the tight dot that forms on the ball as it rotates out the pitcher’s hand, readers that aren’t familiar with what matters in investing won’t be able to separate good research from bad research. They can’t recognize good valuation sense and concepts that can help them from a bunch of numbers or backward-looking price-to-earnings graphs. To the non-ball player, the pitch is just a baseball, not a curveball. To the uninformed reader, financials are just numbers with little differentiation – they can’t recognize which ones are helpful and which ones are not and why. These readers need to work on … Read more

Netflix’s “Moat” Eroding; Energy Transfer Equity’s Blunder Continues

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By Brian Nelson, CFA You won’t see us holding Netflix (NFLX) or Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) in the newsletter portfolios anytime soon, and recent news only supports that viewpoint. We talk about companies not included in the newsletter portfolios as part of their ongoing research and valuation coverage on our website. I must say that as a recent subscriber to Netflix, some of their movie suggestions sent via email haven’t been all that bad – their algorithm must have me figured out. As a logical thinker, and not one swayed by spontaneous gratification, it’s still hard to forget the shortcomings of their content library, in aggregate, however, “5 Reasons Why We Think Netflix’s Shares Will Collapse.” Even if we were to … Read more

Valuentum Client Orientation Online Webinar

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The Valuentum team will be hosting a free online webinar to members and clients. We’ll walk through how to navigate the website, where to find our 16-page stock reports and dividend reports, how to access the newsletter, newsletter portfolios, newsletter archives, where to find our methodology documents, learning materials and much much more. Valuentum’s Brian Nelson will also walk through the firm’s proprietary discounted cash-flow modeling infrastructure and answer questions real-time. Don’t miss this great opportunity to meet the Valuentum team and learn more about how to take advantage of all of the services that Valuentum offers from dividend growth to value-momentum and beyond. Associate Investment Analyst Kris Rosemann, who helps head up the investment research team at Valuentum, will … Read more