Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

Symbol Keyword

Jun 28, 2022

High Yield: Diversified Refiner Phillips 66 A Good Replacement for Broad Consumer Staples Exposure
Image Source: Phillips 66 Investor Update May 2022. Phillips 66 is a top-notch operator in the downstream space with impressive refining and petrochemical assets supported by various midstream operations. Its investment-grade credit rating (A3/BBB+), with stable outlooks, better enables Phillips 66 to tap capital markets at attractive rates, something that we especially like when considering new ideas in the high yield dividend space. A growing global middle class and a growing global population supports Phillip 66's longer term outlook for refined product demand. We like the company as a high yield dividend consideration.

May 25, 2022

Newsletter Portfolio Idea Chevron Focused on Returning Cash to Shareholders
Image Shown: Newsletter portfolio idea Chevron Corporation is very shareholder friendly. We view its capital allocation priorities quite favorably. Image Source: Chevron Corporation – May 2022 IR Presentation. Our newsletter portfolios remain overweight energy names as these companies are well-positioned to ride out inflationary pressures and geopolitical turbulence while generating substantial free cash flows and returning “gobs” of cash to shareholders. We include Chevron Corp in the Best Ideas Newsletter, Dividend Growth Newsletter, and High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolios as the firm has placed a great emphasis on keeping its capital expenditures contained, improving its cost structure, and cutting down on its debt load while returning “gobs” of cash to shareholders.

May 20, 2022

Shares of Newsletter Portfolio Idea Exxon Mobil Are Booming Higher!
Image Source: Newsletter portfolio idea Exxon Mobil Corporation has seen its share price boom higher over the past year. We see room for additional capital appreciation upside potential going forward. Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp have boomed higher over the past year, and we see room for additional capital appreciation upside potential. Our fair value estimate for Exxon Mobil sits at $87 per share, though in the current raw energy resources pricing environment, the top end of our fair value estimate range (which sits at $115 per share) may prove to be a more pertinent gauge of Exxon Mobil’s intrinsic value. We are huge fans of the energy major and include Exxon Mobil in the Best Ideas Newsletter, Dividend Growth Newsletter, and High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolios. Shares of XOM yield a nice ~3.9% as of this writing, and its dividend growth outlook is quite bright in the current environment.

Mar 11, 2022

Chevron Buys Renewable Energy Group
Image Shown: Chevron Corporation is acquiring Renewable Energy Group Inc through an all-cash deal that was announced at the end of February 2022. Image Source: Renewable Energy Group Inc – October 2020 IR Presentation. On February 28, Chevron Corp announced it would acquire Renewable Energy Group Inc through an all-cash transaction. The energy giant is paying $61.50 per share in cash for each share of the renewable fuel producer through a deal with a total enterprise value of $2.75 billion when including Renewable Energy Group’s $0.4 billion net cash position. During the second half of 2022, the transaction is expected to close. We continue to like outsized exposure to Chevron in the simulated newsletter portfolios.

Mar 2, 2022

Evaluating the Exposure of Chevron and Exxon Mobil to Russia’s Energy Industry
Image Shown: Shares of Chevron Corporation (blue line) and Exxon Mobil Corporation (orange line) have skyrocketed over the past six months. Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp, our two favorite large cap energy firms included as ideas in the newsletter portfolios, have relatively modest exposure to Russia. Peers such as BP plc and Shell plc have publicly stated that they would effectively abandon their stakes in Russian operations, and there is a decent chance Chevron and Exxon Mobil will follow suit. Let's talk about the potential impact.

Jan 22, 2022

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater
Image: Erica Nicol. Junk tech should continue to collapse, but the stylistic area of large cap growth and big cap tech should remain resilient. Moderately elevated levels of inflation coupled with interest rates hovering at all-time lows isn’t a terrible combination. In fact, it’s not bad at all. The markets are digesting the huge gains of the past few years so far in 2022, and the excesses in ARKK funds, crypto, SPACs, and meme stocks are being rid from the system. Our best ideas are “outperforming” the very benchmarks that are outperforming everyone else. The BIN portfolio is down 6.4% and the DGN portfolio is down 3.2% year to date. The SPY is down 7.8%, while the average investor may be doing much worse. Our timing to exit some very speculative ideas in the Exclusive publication has been impeccable. Beware of “best-fitted” backtest data regarding sequence of return risks. Research is to help you navigate the future, not the past. We remain bullish on stocks for the long haul and grow more and more excited as our simulated newsletter portfolios continue to hold up very well. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Stick with the largest, strongest growth names. We still like large cap growth and big cap tech, though we are tactical overweight in the largest energy stocks (e.g. XOM, CVX, XLE). The latest short idea in the Exclusive publication has collapsed aggressively since highlight January 9, and we remain encouraged by the resilience of ideas in the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio and ESG Newsletter portfolio. Our options idea generation remains ongoing.

Jan 11, 2022

Valuentum’s Theses on Best Ideas Chevron and Exxon Mobil Playing Out
Image Shown: Shares of Chevron Corporation (the green/red bars) and Exxon Mobil Corporation (the blue/yellow bars) have been on a nice upward climb over the past six months with room to run higher as investors are rotating into energy firms in a big way. Raw energy resources pricing has surged higher during the past year with room to run. The global energy complex is on the rebound as demand for crude oil and refined petroleum products is steadily recovering from the worst of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. As demand for electricity and heating needs held up well during the pandemic, liquified natural gas prices (‘LNG’) put up a strong year in 2021 and remain elevated. The OPEC+ cartel is committed to slowly phasing out its crude oil supply curtailment agreement first enacted in 2020, effectively limiting growth in global oil supplies at a time when demand is rebounding at a brisk pace. We view the near-term outlook for the global energy complex quite favorably and have been pounding the table on this issue for some time. Back on June 27, 2021, we added Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp as ideas to both the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolios and highlighted these portfolio changes. Shares of CVX and XOM yield a juicy ~4.3% and ~5.1% as of this writing, respectively. Recently, shares of both CVX and XOM have started shifting higher, and in our view, this is just the beginning of a strong cyclical recovery. We also recently added Chevron and Exxon Mobil as ideas to the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio, and highlighted two of our favorite midstream master limited partnerships (‘MLPs’) in that publication as well. Our fair value estimate for Chevron sits at $140 per share and the high end of our fair value estimate range sits at $175 per share, while CVX is trading at ~$127 as of this writing. Our fair value estimate for Exxon Mobil sits at $92 per share and the high end of our fair value estimate range sits at $122 per share, while XOM is trading at ~$71 per share as of this writing. As investors continue to rotate into energy firms, we expect that the stock prices of Chevron and Exxon Mobil will continue converging towards our estimate of their respective intrinsic values.

Jan 5, 2022

ICYMI: Exxon Mobil’s Bright Growth Outlook
Image Source: Exxon Mobil Corporation – December 2021 IR Presentation. At the start of December 2021, Exxon Mobil Corp laid out its longer term strategy for the 2020s decade. We are going to cover that outlook, the state of the global energy complex, Exxon Mobil’s stellar and improving financial position, and what to expect going forward. Exxon Mobil is a tremendous enterprise and one of our favorite energy names out there.

Dec 26, 2021

VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT: 2021 Valuentum Exclusive Call: Inflation Is Good
Valuentum's President Brian Michael Nelson, CFA, explains why investors should not fear inflation, why government agencies such as the Fed and Treasury are prioritizing something other than price discovery, why the 10-year Treasury rate is a must-watch metric, and why Valuentum prefers the moaty constituents in large cap growth due to their net cash rich balance sheets, tremendous free cash flow generating potential, and secular growth tailwinds.

Nov 12, 2021

Hard Work and the Trust That Binds
Image: Terry Johnson. It’s easy to forget how much we’ve been through the past two years. Often, we forget how helpful the warning that markets were going to crash was the weekend before they did on February 22, 2020, “Is a Stock Market Crash Coming? – Coronavirus Update and P/E Ratios,” how we thought dollar-cost-averaging made sense at the bottom in March 2020, and how we went “all-in” in April 29, 2020, “ALERT: Going to “Fully Invested” – The Fed and Treasury Have Your Back,” when we saw the writing was on the wall for this blow off top. If nothing else, these three moves alone during the past couple years have paid for a lifetime of subscriptions.