Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Mar 1, 2020

COVID-19 Crisis Intensifies
Image Source: CDC. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The world is being challenged today by what some including Bill Gates believe might be a "once-in-a-century pathogen." We do not know the eventual outcome, whether the impact of this illness ends up being as profound as the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919 (which inflicted a death toll in the tens of millions), but we maintain our view the markets have yet to come to grips with the impact of COVID-19 on economic activity and potential ramifications on the global economy and the banking system. What is currently a "biological" crisis may turn into an all-out global financial crisis, one that could end up worse than the 2008/2009 mortgage meltdown. Instead of toxic mortgages putting a halt to lending activity across the globe as they did over a decade ago, today's crisis stems from an illness that very few of the top health officials in the world know much about--not only in the duration of COVID-19's incubation period, but also in how easily it seems to be spreading, and how deadly it may eventually become, particularly if health systems around the world become overwhelmed.

Feb 27, 2020

Has the Stock Market Crash Begun?
Image: CDC. Transmission electron microscopic image of an isolate from the first U.S. case of COVID-19, formerly known as 2019-nCoV. The spherical viral particles, colorized blue, contain cross-section through the viral genome, seen as black dots.According to the latest Situation Report from the CDC, dated February 25, there are now more new cases reported from countries outside of China than from China. Globally, there are currently 80,000+ confirmed cases in nearly 40 countries, with China, South Korea, Italy and Iran the major hotspots. Up until now, investors have been anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop (i.e. community spread in the United States), with the CDC even saying, “It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country (United States) will have severe illness.” Well, that “when” is now. The CDC just confirmed February 26, 2020, a possible instance of community spread of COVID-19 in the US.

Feb 24, 2020

ALERT: Adding Market Crash 'Protection,' Removing MSFT, BKNG
Image source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  We're adding out-of-the-money put options to both the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio and Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. We're removing Microsoft from the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, and we're removing Booking Holdings from the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. We reiterate that, had the Dow Jones Industrial Average already swooned a couple thousand points on news of the COVID-19 outbreak, we might have considered some undervalued stocks with strong momentum potential "buying opportunities." However, to this point in time, the markets have largely ignored COVID-19, with major US indices still sitting near all-time highs. We could be in for a wild ride in the coming weeks and months, and an outright market crash is not out of question. For those looking for short-idea considerations, please consider the Exclusive publication here. We remain fully-invested in the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio given its yield and income focus.

Feb 22, 2020

Is a Stock Market Crash Coming? -- Coronavirus Update and P/E Ratios
Image Source: World Health Organization, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Situation Report -- 32. We don’t think this is the environment to put new capital to work, and we remain highly cautious of what COVID-19 means for global economic growth not just in the first quarter of 2020 but for the rest of this year (maybe longer). Right now, the US markets are not really factoring in anything related to COVID-19, and perhaps may be adjusting to China’s stimulus in artificially propping up the markets as if the outbreak is somehow a “positive thing.” With the S&P 500 trading at 19.0 forward earnings estimates--estimates that are likely too high given the evidence we are seeing with respect to a slowdown due to COVID-19--and corporate debt levels more elevated than ever before (note, a high net debt level should depress the P/E in enterprise valuation--US corporate debt has advanced 50% over the past decade, to $10 trillion), it is our contention that the current market reflects a “situation-equivalent” forward P/E (i.e. rightsizing for new net debt relative to the dot-com peak and adjusting for lower forward earnings expectations compared with current forecasts) perhaps greater than 24.4, which was recorded at the peak of the dot-com bubble. Though interest rates are lower than they were at the time of the dot-com crash, suggesting a modest reasonable bump to normalized forward P/E ratios of ~15 times to reflect “fair valuations,” we could seriously be in for fundamental-driven crash soon, as both the earnings multiple and earnings estimates contract aggressively. Hypothetically, a contraction to a 16x forward multiple on earnings estimates just 10% lower than currently forecast implies an S&P 500 of 2,566, or a swoon of about 20%-30% from current levels--and that would just get us down to 16x still-respectable forward numbers. How quantitative-driven price-agnostic trading may impact this scenario is not known either, and all of this could be setting up for a wild ride in the coming weeks and months. Fasten your seatbelts. We’ll have a few newsletter portfolio alerts coming Monday.

Feb 10, 2020

Disney Reports Earnings and Provides an Update on the Novel Coronavirus Epidemic
Image Shown: Walt Disney Company recently reported earnings and provided an update as to what investors should expect going forward given the ongoing novel coronavirus epidemic in China. On February 4, Walt Disney reported earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal 2020 (period ended December 28, 2019). While Disney beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates, shares sold off modestly the next trading day over fears concerning the ongoing novel coronavirus epidemic (abbreviated as ‘2019-nCoV’) in China, and how that would impact its financial performance going forward. On January 13, 2020, we added shares of DIS to our Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio with a modest weighting given that shares were trading close to our fair value estimate at the time. However, we view Disney’s free cash flow growth outlook as very promising, which could see shares of DIS approach the high end of our fair value estimate range which sits at $168 per share. Additionally, we like its dividend coverage as its Dividend Cushion ratio sits at 3.1x, which supports a nice dividend growth trajectory as well. Shares of DIS yield ~1.2% as of this writing.

Jan 23, 2020

Resetting Your Mental Model
Image Source: affen ajlfe. Having the right mental model and using the right information can be the reason why you win or lose in investing.

Jan 14, 2020

Disney Joins the Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio
Image Shown: Shares of The Walt Disney Company have performed well over the past year, and we see room for additional upside. Media and entertainment giant The Walt Disney Company was just added to our Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Though the firm does not register the typically high Valuentum Buying Index rating that we would prefer with new additions (sometimes we have to relax criteria to achieve newsletter portfolio goals), we like Disney’s business model and its future free cash flows are underpinned by: a top quality intellectual property (‘IP’) portfolio that’s practically impossible to replace, the immense profitability of its theme parks (which benefit from its strong and ever-growing IP portfolio i.e. adding Star Wars-themed rides), its strength in streaming (Disney owns ~67% of Hulu and Disney+ has reportedly been a big hit initially), its position in live sports (one of the few reasons why households keep cable, or choose higher priced streaming packages) is top notch (ESPN, which Disney owns ~80% of, now has ESPN+ to offer incremental upside), and the company should be able to wring out synergies after buying 21st Century Fox (the deal closed in March 2019) through a ~$71 billion cash-and-stock deal.

Jan 4, 2020

Valuentum Exclusive Success Rates Trump Even the Best Quant Hedge Funds
Image: President of Investment Research Brian Nelson, CFA. A new book, “The Man Who Solved the Market,” hit bookshelves last year, and thus far it has been a hit. The text goes into the story of quant hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and its hedge fund, the Medallion Fund, which has put up mammoth returns since inception.

Dec 27, 2019

Streaming Wars Roundup
Image Shown: Shares of Netflix Inc came under pressure around the same time that competition in the streaming video space really started to heat up. Those competitive headwinds are only going to build going forward. This is often referred to the start of the “streaming wars” which is what we’ll cover in this article.With so many competitors now entering the streaming space, it will likely become hard for companies to push through price increases unless they are truly producing top tier content. That will make covering enormous content creation liabilities a difficult but not impossible task. Our favorite companies in this space remain Apple and AT&T. Differentiation is possible in this industry but having a strong free cash flow profile (both Apple and AT&T’s free cash flows are simply enormous) is essential to having a chance.

Nov 5, 2019

Our Reports on Stocks in the Media (CATV) Industry
Image Source: Mike Mozart. We've modified our coverage of reports on stocks in the Media (CATV) industry.