Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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The Success Equation Book Review: Is the Skill Paradox a Myth in Investing? We Think So
Image: The game of baseball has changed during the past 100 years. While many point to a declining standard deviation and coefficient of variation in batting averages for evidence of a paradox of skill in baseball, it's more likely the game has changed. Players are hitting more homeruns, sacrificing batting average as a result. Note the red part of the line is when the game of baseball expanded to the current number of 30 teams. Data from the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season omitted. Source: Baseball Almanac. There's a lot of informational value in reading The Success Equation (and everyone should pick up a copy), but please be careful to come to your own conclusion. From where we stand, there is not a paradox of skill in investing (or baseball, for that matter). The games have simply changed based on new incentives. Some wise person may have written this before: Be careful not in what you read, but rather in the conclusions you draw from your reading. We wish Mauboussin could re-write The Success Equation considering some of the thoughts in this article. Maybe he will!

U.S. Housing Market Showing Signs of Weakness
Image Shown: The U.S. housing market is starting to show signs of weakness. Companies involved in the home building business in the U.S. are starting to feel the heat, with the iShares US Home Construction ETF down ~30% year-to-date as of early September 2022 on a price-only basis. The national U.S. housing market has been on fire during the past few years. Sharp increases in U.S. housing prices are now contending with rising mortgage rates, which is prompting the question, are U.S. housing prices heading for a crash? Affordability issues are rampant, with many households now priced out of the market, and signs of weakness are emerging in the U.S. housing market. We think the prospect for rising mortgage interest rates could send housing prices spiraling lower, but nothing like that of the housing crisis of 2007-2009.

LINK --> Massive Unrest In Europe, Energy Crisis Could Be the Catalyst to Topple the Global Markets
Europe is on the brink Over 70000 people came out in support of Russia in Prague and are forcing the Govt to resign for supporting Ukraine pic.twitter.com/lwMAjkBM2U — Mahesh 🇮🇳 (@Mahesh10816) September 3, 2022 The European energy crisis continues to unfold, and we’ve been keeping our members updated on this huge story. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (‘EU’) along with key Western allies (such as the US, UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Australia) imposed punishing economic sanctions on Russia to hinder its efforts in Ukraine and deter other nations from pursuing imperialistic land grabs. Russia retaliated by limiting the flow of various energy products to nations that imposed those sanctions. In particularly, energy flows from Russia to member nations within the EU were curtailed aggressively, with an eye towards France, Italy, and Germany along with Poland and the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia). Natural gas, crude oil, and petroleum product exports from Russia to EU member nations have tanked this year. The land war in Ukraine has not grown into a massive economic war in Europe, and this catalyst could be the one that topples the global markets.

ICYMI (Aug 19) -- ALERT -- PYPL, META, GOOG, V -- Making Some Big Changes in the Simulated Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio!
Image Shown: We are very happy with the overall "performance" of the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, which is carving out 2.6 percentage points of relative outperformance so far in 2022 on a price-only basis, as shown in the table above. However, we're making some big changes to the simulated newsletter portfolio today on some of our favorite names. Our best ideas continue to be in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, the simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, the simulated High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio, the simulated ESG Newsletter portfolio, and the Exclusive publication, as well as with our additional options commentary. We're making some big moves in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio today! At the moment, the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio is carving out about 2.6 percentage points of relative outperformance so far in 2022, on a price-only basis relative to the the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF. Overall, after some huge years, the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio is down a modest ~8.6% in 2022, by our estimates. Pretty good, all things considered. That said, the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF has bounced right off its 200-day moving average (technical resistance), and we're not going to sit by while the risks to the market this year increase. We remain bullish on stocks for the long haul, of course, but we think incremental alpha may be generated by removing/trimming/adding to some of our winners in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio at this time. We're changing our mind on a couple things, too, as any good investor does. [This note was emailed to members August 19.]

Nelson: The 16 Most Important Steps To Understand The Stock Market
Image Source: Tim Green. We outline the '16 Most Important Steps to Understand the Stock Market.' We think it's important to take a read of these key stock market tenets when things are going great -- and perhaps even more important when things aren't going your way. This continues to be a working document.

Stocks Surge: Strong S&P 500 Earnings Growth Expected, Headline Scares With Inflation Tamed, Interest Rates Still Low
Image Source: BLS. The pace of inflation looks like it may slow down considerably in 2023 as sequential monthly increases pause their advance. Everybody seems to be looking to compare this market to another market sometime in the past, but regardless of which analog you read about, there is one thing that every pullback, crises, or calamity has had in common: The markets eventually returned to all-time highs. That’s what we’re betting on. Some say we could see new highs by the end of the year, but for us, we’re okay if it takes some time longer than that. The past few years have simply been awesome for equity returns, to say the least! Regardless, those higher nominal input prices that everyone is talking about today will eventually act as a launchpad for nominal earnings and nominal equity prices in the future, pushing them ever higher, in our view. What more can we say, we continue to like stocks for the long haul!

Albemarle Raises Guidance Yet Again, Expects to Be FCF Positive in 2022
Image Shown: Albemarle Corporation’s lithium operations have posted stellar financial performance in recent quarters and underpin the firm’s bright long-term growth outlook. Image Source: Albemarle Corporation – Second Quarter of 2022 IR Earnings Presentation. We liked what we saw in Albemarle’s latest earnings report. Albemarle is betting the farm that the supply-demand dynamics will remain favorable for lithium producers. Volume growth and favorable pricing for lithium derivatives is a powerful combination that Albemarle has effectively capitalized on so far. Lithium is a major component in lithium-ion batteries which are used to power electric vehicles (‘EVs’), battery storage facilities, consumer electronics, and much more. Should EV sales continue to grow while utilities are increasingly turning to battery storage solutions to supplement their backup power options, demand for lithium should continue to grow at a robust pace as well. Albemarle is well-positioned to capitalize on this upside, aided by its stellar operational execution. Shares of ALB yield ~0.7% as of this writing and the top end of our fair value estimate range for Albemarle sits at $309 per share.

Best Idea Berkshire Hathaway Continues to Impress
Image Shown: Berkshire Hathaway Inc is a stellar cash flow generator in almost any operating environment. Image Source: Berkshire Hathaway Inc – 10-Q SEC filing covering the Second Quarter of 2022. Berkshire Hathaway Inc reported second quarter 2022 earnings that saw its ‘operating earnings’ metric surge higher versus the year-ago level. This metric removes realized and unrealized gains/losses in its large equity portfolio from the picture to provide investors with a better understanding of the company’s underlying performance. Due to the downturn in equity markets seen during the first half of this year, Berkshire Hathaway’s GAAP net income swung to a large net loss last quarter. We include shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class B (ticker: BRK.B) in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, and our fair value estimate sits at $320 per share with room for upside.

Exxon Mobil Surging Higher with Room for Upside
Image Shown: Exxon Mobil Corporation put up stellar results when reporting its second quarter earnings in late July 2022. Image Source: Exxon Mobil Corporation – Second Quarter of 2022 IR Earnings Presentation. Exxon Mobil Corp posted second quarter 2022 earnings that flew past consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. The tailwind provided by elevated raw energy resources prices, rising oil & gas production volumes, ongoing cost structure improvement initiatives, and strong “crack spreads” (refining margins) more than offset headwinds arising from its decision to exit Russia in March 2022 and foreign currency headwinds due to a strong U.S. dollar. Exxon Mobil is one of our favorite energy ideas, and we include shares of XOM in several of the newsletter portfolios as it offers investors a nice combination of dividend growth and capital appreciation upside potential. Shares of XOM yield ~3.6% as of this writing, and our fair value estimate sits at $105 per share of Exxon Mobil.

Loving Stocks Here! Meta and Alphabet Setting Up Nicely for Long Term Investors!
Image: Nelson still remains bullish. We wouldn't be surprised to see the markets make new highs as they have done time and time again over the stock market's storied history of bull and bear markets, crashes and rip-your-face off rallies, and economic booms and recessions! There are myriad risks, but we're not overthinking this market. We like stocks for the long haul. One of the hardest parts of investing is keeping your head when others around you are running for the exits. That's exactly what we did for members (we don't manage money), and the stock market has come roaring back since the mid-June bottom! Anyone who has read our book Value Trap knows that the rapid fall in the 10-year Treasury yield to ~2.8% today from the mid-3% range in mid-June has helped support this stock market advance (due to a lower cost of capital in discounted cash-flow models -- enterprise valuation is the key driver behind stock market performance, in our view, as it has been revealed time and time again). After calling the COVID-19 crash when others doubted the impact that the coronavirus would have on the markets, and then calling the tremendous bull run that followed, we still remain bullish on these markets, and the simulated newsletter portfolios have done fantastic on a relative basis so far this year.