Member Articles

Dividend Increases for the Week Ending January 15

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending January 15. 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 Alliant Energy (LNT): now $0.5875 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.55. Antero Midstream (AM): now $0.22 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.205. Apogee (APOG): now $0.125 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.11. Blackrock, Inc. (BLK): now $2.29 per share quarterly dividend, was $2.18. Cinver Resources (CINR): now $0.5575 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.551. Delphi Automotive (DLPH): now $0.29 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.25. EPR … Read more

Lots to Like About Intel’s 2016: 3D XPoint and Altera!

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Newsletter portfolio holding Intel (INTC) continues to change with the world around it. An increasingly smart and connected world offers significant opportunities for the company, but those opportunities will not be presented without obstacles to hurdle. It didn’t work out so well for the price of Intel the week of its report, as it released a somewhat cautious outlook on a day of a big market swoon, but we still expect some good things ahead from the chip giant. In fact, we continue to like the holding in the context of achieving the goals of the newsletter portfolios. In the fourth quarter of 2015, results released January 14, Intel reported record revenue of $14.9 billion, though the top line grew … Read more

Valuentum: A Beacon For Good

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Image Source: US Embassy “Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think, can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: ‘I served in the United States Navy.’” – John F. Kennedy I felt inspired today. Maybe it was President Barack Obama’s reference to a new “war on cancer” in this week’s State of the Union speech, akin to that of John F. Kennedy’s mission to “go to the moon,” or maybe it was something else, but I was reminded of the great Jack Kennedy and the second quote above: what a man does to make his life worthwhile. If I were asked what I did to make … Read more

The 20 Something’s Stock Portfolio

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A version of this article appeared on our website March 31, 2015. <Our best ideas at any time are included in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio.> The “20 Something’s Stock Portfolio” is the first in a series of articles where we get to the core of what many brand new investors want to do when they are first introduced to the stock market: find exciting companies that they are familiar with that will help compound their wealth over time. Other portfolios that we will share in this series include “The Ultra High Income Portfolio,” “The Economic Castle Portfolio,” “The Dividend Cushion Portfolio,” and “The Intelligent ETF Investor’s Portfolio,” among others. The series of portfolios will … Read more

ICYMI: 5 Concerns About Impending Rate Hikes

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The first Fed rate hike in nearly a decade came and went December 16, putting an environment of ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) to an end, a policy that grew out of the Financial Crisis and the depths of the Great Recession late last decade. The Fed had paused plans to hike the federal funds rate for much of 2015 as a result, in our view, of getting a more informed read on the potential implications of emerging market developments–namely dislocations in the local Chinese equity markets (FXI) and recessionary conditions in Brazil (EWZ)–and the stock market crash (SPY) in the US in August that sent equities of some of the most well-known stocks including Apple (AAPL) and General Electric … Read more

Bye Bye Energy MLPs

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West Texas crude oil prices (USO) just broke through $32 per barrel to the downside for the first time since 2003. Share prices of those in the energy complex (XLE) continue to reel, and we maintain our view that the tremendous fallout in energy master limited partnerships (AMLP, AMZ) may not be over. From our perspective, the MLP business model may not survive in its present state, as equity markets continue to “wise up” to the artificial equity pricing paradigm that has centered on the group’s financially-engineered payouts. Without an artificial pricing paradigm to “prop up” their equity prices, for example, the incentive to perpetuate such a business model is substantially reduced. Distribution cuts would then inevitably ensue as a … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending January 8

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending January 8. 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 Alamo (ALG): now $0.09 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.08. Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK): now $0.15 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.145. DDR (DDR): now $0.19 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.1725. Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD): now $0.39 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.385. Formula Systems (FORTY): now $0.34 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.23. Genesis Energy (GEL): now $0.655 per share quarterly dividend, … Read more

Chipotle Fourth Quarter Comps Suffer Greatly; Could Qdoba Be the One to Eat Chipotle’s Lunch?

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Chipotle’s (CMG) operating performance has come under tremendous pressure in recent months due to a number of reports linking illness in customers to its restaurants. At first, we thought the situation would be relatively contained to just a few dozen instances of sickened customers, but more concerns have come to light since we last commented on the topic. The media is having a field day. Can a company that prides itself on “Food with Integrity” endure, and why so many different causes of illness, from E. coli to salmonella to the norovirus? Could these events mark the beginning of the end of the burrito-making giant’s growth prospects, or is the bad press just a hiccup of indigestion, soon to be … Read more

The Markets Swoon Again

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The broader US markets (SPY) swooned again January 7 as fears of a slowdown in China (FXI), or worse, a dislocation in Asia’s currency markets, and ongoing concerns about the sustainability of some of the most leveraged “players” in the energy complex took the spotlight again. None of this should be surprising. As we’ve done many a time before with the mortgage REITs, namely American Capital (AGNC) and Annaly (NLY), SeaDrill (SDRL) and the latest with Kinder Morgan (KMI), our members are far ahead of developments. That’s our job – we’re not reporters. We strive to get the right information to our members before it becomes “information,” and using the newsletter portfolios as an indication of our views on capital … Read more

Question Answered: The Process Is As Important As the Idea

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We like to publish excellent questions and the answers to them at times for the benefit of all members. Let’s start with the answer first. A: This is a great question because it hits at the heart of our process. We not only look at the intrinsic valuation of equities, but we also evaluate the market’s conviction in the company’s undervaluation via pricing information, more commonly applied via technical and momentum work. So, in short, we like stocks that have both good value and good momentum indicators, hence our name Valuentum, and we’d only view the top tier of our ranking system 8-10 as ideas for consideration (generally), but only after the ones in the newsletter portfolios (the Best Ideas Newsletter … Read more