Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

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Altria Selling Portion of ABI Stake, Raises 2024 Guidance
Image: Altria’s shares reacted positively to news that it would sell a portion of its stake in Anheuser-Busch Inbev. On March 14, Altria Group announced that it would be selling in a secondary offering 35 million of its ~197 million shares of Anheuser-Busch Inbev it owns to unlock value for shareholders. The cigarette maker noted that it would use the proceeds of the sale for accelerated share buybacks to the tune of a $2.4 billion increase to its existing $1 billion repurchase program, a move that we like quite a bit as it helps to reduce total dividend obligations paid to shareholders given Altria’s outsized dividend yield. The cigarette maker also raised its earnings guidance because of the sale, and we continue to like Altria as a high yield dividend income idea.

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We Remain Bullish; Is This 1995 – The Beginning of a Huge Stock Market Run?
Image: Large cap growth stocks have trounced the performance of the S&P 500, REITs, and bonds since the beginning of 2023. We expect continued outperformance in this area of the market. We’re now roughly four years past the depths of the COVID-19 meltdown, where equities collapsed in February and March of 2020. As the markets began to recover through 2020, our long-term conviction in equities only grew stronger. We think the biggest risk for long-term investors remains staying out of the market on the basis of what could be considered stretched valuation multiples. As we outlined heavily in the book Value Trap, valuation multiples hardly tell the complete story about a company and often omit key long-term earnings growth, cash flow dynamics, and balance sheet health considerations. We remain bullish on equities for the long haul, and we think the next couple years will be incredibly strong. Our best ideas can be found in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio, ESG Newsletter portfolio, and via the Exclusive publication as well as options idea generation.

Earnings Roundup: MO, EPD, SBUX, CLX, HON
Image: Starbucks’ international store growth potential remains robust. Image Source: Starbucks. High-yielding tobacco giant Altria offered an outlook through 2028 that spoke to continued robust earnings and dividend-per-share expansion. Enterprise Products Partners, now a Dividend Aristocrat, is handling record volumes through its pipeline network, and the firm is investing heavily to drive improved long-term cash flow trends. Starbucks recently disappointed on a number of metrics, but the company's margin and earnings performance remains excellent, as is its international store growth opportunities. Clorox has recovered nicely from a recent cyberattack, and the firm is now forecasting adjusted earnings per share growth in fiscal 2024. We're monitoring its cash flow trends closely, however. Honeywell is targeting tremendous free cash flow growth in 2024 thanks to continued strength in its commercial aerospace operations.

Stock Reports on 25 Dividend Kings to Pad Your Dividend Growth Portfolio
Image Source: Jason Train. Investors love dividends! After all, research has shown that companies that have paid an ever-increasing dividend for a long time do quite well in the stock market. In this note, you can download the stock reports of 25 Dividend Kings, or stocks that have raised their dividends in each of the past 50 years!

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.

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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.

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.

Brief Take: Altria’s 10% Dividend Yield Is Too Hard to Pass Up
Altria Group’s forward estimated 10% dividend yield is too hard to pass up as it is comfortably covered by traditional free cash flow. The tobacco giant reported third-quarter 2023 results on October 26 that showcased how its asset-light business model continues to throw off tons of cash. Traditional free cash flow generation came in at ~$5.9 billion during the first nine months of 2023, while cash dividends paid came in at ~$5 billion, resulting in a very nice free cash flow cushion on a ~10%-yielding stock. Though revenue growth at Altria remains under pressure, gross profit continues to move in the right direction. Altria has raised its dividend 58 times during the past 54 years, and the firm continues to target mid-single-digit dividend growth annually. For income investors that aren’t worried about ESG-related criteria, Altria could make for a great diversifier in a high-yield dividend income portfolio. Our fair value estimate stands north of $60 per share (shares are trading under $40 at the time of this writing).