Member Articles

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of September 15

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending September 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                          Absa Group Limited (AGRPY): now $0.5518 per share dividend, was $0.5416. AGNC Investment Series C Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock (AGNCN): now $0.6676 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.6482. Andlauer Healthcare Group (AND:CA): now CAD 0.09 per share quarterly dividend, was CAD 0.08. Brambles (BXBLY): now $0.26 per share dividend, was $0.22. China Resources Cement Holdings (CARCY): now $0.1364 per share dividend, was … Read more

Visa’s High Margin Business Reveals Consumer Spending Remains Resilient

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  Image: Visa has been a strong performer thus far in 2023.  By Brian Nelson, CFA On October 24, Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio holding Visa (V) reported excellent fourth-quarter results for its fiscal 2023. Net revenues advanced 11% on a year-over-year basis, while non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP earnings per share leapt 18% and 21% year-over-year, respectively, in the period. For the fiscal year, Visa generated an impressive 64.4% operating margin. Payments volume increased 9% and cross-border volume advanced 16%, showcasing that the consumer remains very healthy thanks in part to low unemployment rates, despite concerns over higher mortgage costs, student loan repayments, and general economic uncertainty as savings accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic wane. We continue to be big … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of October 27

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending October 27. 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                          AbbVie (ABBV): now $1.55 per share quarterly dividend, was $1.48. Adecoagro (AGRO): now $0.1649 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.1626. American Electric Power (AEP): now $0.88 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.83. Amphenol (APH): now $0.22 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.21. Associated Banc-Corp (ASB): now $0.22 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.21. Atlantic Union Bank (AUB): now $0.32 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of January 31

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending January 31. 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                          AES (AES): now $0.1759 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.1725. ALLETE (ALE): now $0.730 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.705. Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT): now $0.46 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.37. Archrock (AROC): now $0.190 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.175. Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG): now $0.65 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.60. Baker Hughes (BKR): now $0.23 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of July 25

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending July 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                          Archrock (AROC): now $0.21 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.19. Arrow Financial (AROW): now $0.29 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.28. Blackstone (BX): now $1.03 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.93. Cashmere Valley Bank (CSHX): now $0.95 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.90. CB Financial Services (CBFV): now $0.26 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.25. ChipMOS (IMOS): now $0.836 per share American depositary share, … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of August 8

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending August 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                          Alphamin Resources Corp. (AFM:CA): now CAD 0.07 per share semi-annual dividend, was CAD 0.06. Ambev (ABEV): now $0.0230 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.0219. Annaly Capital Management, Inc. PFD SER G (NLY.PR.G): now $0.5577 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.5518. Annaly Capital Management, Inc. PFD STK I 6.75% (NLY.PR.I): now $0.6098 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.6034. Aura Minerals (AUGO): now $0.33 per share … Read more

In The Name of Our Independence and Integrity…For Goodness Sake

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Last week, an article was published that associated us with hedge funds, questioned our integrity as honest hard-working equity analysts with years of experience, dismissed our fantastic performance track record and Brian Nelson’s Chartered Financial Analyst designation, tarnished our independence as an equity research provider, and offered another author in free form the opportunity to misinterpret our completely independent and unbiased thesis and address it in ways of their preference, belittling our entire team at Valuentum and doing irreparable harm to our brand and image, in our vew. We were willing to let it go, but then another article ran in the print edition Saturday. First, let’s address the online piece, and the print piece subsequent to this. Valuentum’s thoughts … Read more

Don’t Follow the Social Media Likes: The Divine “Comment(y)”

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Image Source: Pilottage “Personally, it was a miserable experience for me to see things that others couldn’t.” – Nelson on Valuentum’s call preceding Kinder Morgan’s dividend cut. By Brian Nelson, CFA — A foreshadowing, a rare comment remembering Valuentum’s successful warning on Seadrill when we made our call on Kinder Morgan, June 2015. This was one of the more difficult articles for me to write. I don’t know why exactly, but the words just aren’t coming out right. Pardon me. It sounds trite, almost to the point of blasphemy, to call “The Divine Comedy” a self-help book, but that’s how Dante himself saw it. In a letter to his patron, Can Grande della Scala, the poet said that the goal … Read more

Have Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Shares Finally Found Support?

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Image Source: kennijima By Alexander J. Poulos and Brian Nelson, CFA The pharmaceutical industry remains an area of innovation with numerous life-altering therapies brought forth to treat the many afflictions that plague us. The industry lifeblood remains the tenuous path of research and study. There is not a foolproof way to predict how a compound will respond until full clinical trials are completed and analyzed, and even successful commercialization cannot be guaranteed should a drug be approved, regardless of the time and costs invested. A later stage clinical failure, for example, could devastate a smaller company, with its equity never to recover. That’s in part why we tend to prefer larger, more diversified, entities within the pharma/biotech arena as the … Read more