Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Dec 29, 2023

Latest Report Updates
Check out the latest report updates on the website.

Dec 23, 2023

12 Reasons to Stay Aggressive in 2024
From outperforming simulated newsletter portfolios to fantastic success rates in the Exclusive publication to option ideas and great income-oriented ideas and beyond, we continue to deliver across our simulated newsletter suite as our latest video outlines. It’s hard to know exactly what 2024 will bring in terms of a market return, but the internals of the stock market and the U.S. economy look great to us. The new bull market we’re in could last for years, and as a result, we are staying aggressive with many of our new ideas as we look to benefit from these favorable trends.

Dec 1, 2023

A Note on Valuation -- Low P/E Stocks with High Dividend Yields
Image: Stocks with low valuation multiples have trailed the broader S&P 500 (orange) considerably since the depths of the Great Financial Crisis. Today, with all the readily available information and data out there, it is far more likely the case that a company with a low P/E ratio actually deserves it, and a firm with an outsized dividend yield just holds a lot of net debt on their books. Investing in low P/E stocks or stocks with low valuation multiples without considering their intrinsic values (i.e. fair value estimates) may result in owning a basket of value traps. Investors may be attracted to these types of stocks for their low P/E ratios and hefty dividend yields, but just having a low P/E ratio and a high dividend yield doesn’t a good stock make. If investing were this easy, so-called “value stocks” wouldn’t have underperformed the market significantly for more than a decade and a half now.

Nov 29, 2023

Latest Report Updates
Check out the latest report refreshes on the website.

Nov 28, 2023

Crown Castle Continues to Languish
Image: Crown Castle’s shares have not fared well through 2023, and we’ll be looking to remove them from the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio in coming months. Crown Castle benefits from attractive tower economics as it can scale customers across its shared infrastructure to drive increased profitability, but the company's massive net cash position continues to weigh on our enthusiasm of the company. Shares of the firm may get a bounce as spot interest rates may continue to ease in the near term, but we’ll be looking to remove it from the simulated High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio in the coming months. We also plan to remove the Vanguard Real Estate ETF from that portfolio, too.

Nov 10, 2023

Use Both the Dividend Cushion Ratio (Probability of a Dividend Cut) and the Qualitative Dividend Ratings in Your Assessment of the Payout
The Dividend Cushion ratio ranks companies on the probability of a dividend cut in the longer run, while the qualitative ratings in part assess the outlook for the health of the payout in the near term in the context of management’s willingness to preserve and raise the payout. Since the systematic application of the Dividend Cushion ratio across our coverage in 2012, the Dividend Cushion ratio has forewarned readers of approximately 50 dividend cuts. We estimate its efficacy at ~90% at identifying the risks of a dividend cut in advance of the event.

Oct 22, 2023

There Will Be Volatility
Image: An ETF tracking Russell 1000 "growth" stocks has outperformed an ETF tracking Russell 2000 "value" stocks since the beginning of 2021. To us, the market remains hypersensitive to almost every economic data point that hits the wires, and we’re just not going to play that game. The macro headlines and never-ending news flow are what many quant and algorithmic traders are trading on, and to a very large extent, for investors with a long-term horizon, these macro data points just don’t factor into the equation. When valuing equities, we’re always after mid-cycle expectations, not peak or trough performance, so our valuations implicitly embed a "normal" recession. Warren Buffett didn’t become a billionaire buying and selling on macro data points, and volatility is simply to be expected given the proliferation of price-agnostic trading these days. Instead of panicking over higher interest rates, we think investors should view the Fed’s work thus far as future potential dry powder to stimulate both the economy and the markets. Whenever you feel like stocks are no good, have a read of Warren Buffett’s classic piece written during the Great Financial Crisis, “Buy American. I Am.” To us, we still like stocks for the long run. Happy investing!

Sep 20, 2023

ICYMI: Questions for Valuentum’s Brian Nelson
Valuentum's President Brian Nelson, CFA, answers your questions.

Aug 17, 2023

3 High Dividend Yielders for Consideration
Image: Entities with large net cash positions and substantial free cash flow generation have outperformed not only the broader stock market, but also key high yield areas, including REITs, mortgage REITs and master limited partnerships during the past 10 years. Source: The respective ETF sponsors. The skills to successfully invest for long-term capital gains or long-term dividend growth are much different than those required for generating high yield dividend income. Income investing is a much different proposition. However, the skills do center on a similar equity evaluation process, but one that requires an acknowledgement and heightened awareness of considerably greater downside risks. Income investing, or high yield dividend income investing, should at times be considered among the riskiest forms of investing, as many high dividend-yielding securities tend to trade closer to the characteristics of junk-rated bonds than they do most net cash rich and free cash flow generating powerhouses that we like so much in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio.

Aug 2, 2023

ICYMI: Let’s Play Devil’s Advocate: What’s the Bear Case for Realty Income?
Image Source: Realty Income. It’s helpful to challenge one’s thesis on a favorite idea every now and then, and we’ve done just that with Realty Income in this article. We see three areas of weakness at Realty Income that could challenge our bullish take on the name: 1) its retail exposure, 2) its financial leverage and arguably unwarranted investment-grade credit rating, and 3) the current rising interest rate environment. Perhaps the most compelling component of the bear case on Realty Income is its massive net debt position and present value of future dividend liabilities that dwarf its annual operating cash flow. The REIT business model isn’t as attractive as many make it out to be.