Valuentum Exclusive Analysis for the Discerning Investor

Symbol Keyword

Nov 10, 2020

Reiterating Our $229 Fair Value Estimate for Berkshire Hathaway
Image Shown: Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B are moving on upwards. Berkshire Hathaway reported third quarter 2020 earnings this past Saturday, November 7. The insurance and industrial conglomerate reported that its GAAP income almost doubled year-over-year as its investment portfolio reported large gains. However, that masked pressures at some of Berkshire Hathaway’s myriad businesses as the company navigated the storm created by the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. Berkshire Hathaway continued to generate significant free cash flows during the first nine months of 2020, and we are reiterating our fair value estimate of $229 per share of Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares.

Nov 4, 2020

Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio Holdings Are Surging!
Image: The holdings in the Best Ideas Newsletter during the trading session November 4. We continue to pound the table on our best ideas. If you were like me, you stayed up as long as you could last night watching the U.S. election coverage before it became too difficult to keep your eyes open. When I went to sleep, it seemed as though Donald Trump would be re-elected. The only state that appeared to flip to the Democrats from the 2016 election was Arizona, meaning Trump would still retain greater than the 270 electoral votes required to gain re-election. Well, that was last night, and this is today. As more and more votes came in last night and into the morning, it became evident that the races in Wisconsin and Michigan were much tighter than the news coverage last night led to believe. In fact, with just a small percentage of the votes left outstanding to count in those states, Joe Biden appears to be running ahead of Donald Trump in those states, if only ever so slightly (~20,000-30,000 votes). Donald Trump’s huge gap in Pennsylvania--about 8.7 percentage points at the time of this writing--may also narrow when it is all said and done. The bottom line is that this election is just too early to call!

Nov 2, 2020

Kraft Heinz Shows the Power of the VBI
Image: Years ago, shares of Kraft Heinz registered a rating of 1 on the Valuentum Buying Index (VBI) on two separate occasions, highlighting the company’s overpriced nature and weakening technicals. Rare and extreme ratings on the VBI, 1 = worst; 10 = best, tend to be the most informative and/or the most actionable for investors. There are just too many net cash rich, free cash flow generating powerhouses with tremendous competitively advantaged business models tied to secular growth tailwinds that taking a flier on an overleveraged turnaround such as Kraft Heinz almost feels irresponsible. That said, shares yield ~5.2% as of this writing, so income investors might find a decent risk reward at the right price. With a 27% stake, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway seems to think so.

Oct 13, 2020

Great Day in the Markets!
Image: The Invesco QQQ Trust, an exchange-traded fund based on the NASDAQ 100 index, had a great day during the trading session October 12, as it leads all major indexes on the year. The trading session October 12 was a sight to see. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.88%, the S&P 500 jumped 1.64%, while the NASDAQ powered ahead an incredible 2.56%. As many of our members know, the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio are very heavily weighted in large cap growth, big cap tech, and the NASDAQ.

Sep 3, 2020

3 Lessons in Portfolio Management Over 10 Years
Image Source: http://www.epictop10.com/. "When I left as director in the equity and credit department at Morningstar in 2011, I thought I knew a whole heck of a lot about investing. I felt like I was one in the top 5-10 in the world as it relates to the category of practical knowledge of enterprise valuation (maybe include Koller at McKinsey, Mauboussin at Counterpoint, and Damadoran at Stern on this list). After all, I oversaw the valuation infrastructure of a department that used the process extensively, and the firm was among just a few that used enterprise valuation systematically. Then, at Valuentum, our small team would go on to build/update 20,000+ more enterprise valuation models. There can always be someone else out there, of course, but I don't think anybody has worked within the DCF model as much as I have across so many different companies. That said, through the past near-10 years managing Valuentum's simulated newsletter portfolios, I've also learned a number of things to become an even better portfolio manager." -- Brian Nelson, CFA

Sep 3, 2020

The Merits of Concentrated Portfolios
Image Source: QuoteInspector.com. To some degree, each investor has to pick their own preference. With widely-diversified index investing, firm-specific risk is largely eliminated as such investors are taking on only systematic risk. On the other hand, investors seeking portfolio concentration are taking on firm-specific risk, in addition to systematic risk. This could either help mitigate broader market movements or exacerbate them. I hope this was helpful, and may today's nearly all-green Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio brighten your spirits. Let us look to even better times ahead.

Sep 1, 2020

Valuentum Website Overview
Overview of the key features of www.valuentum.com (03:55). Valuentum (val∙u∙n∙tum) [val-yoo-en-tuh-m] Securities Inc. is an independent investment research publisher, offering premium equity reports, dividend reports, and ETF reports, as well as commentary across all sectors/companies, a Best Ideas Newsletter (spanning market caps, asset classes), a Dividend Growth Newsletter, modeling tools/products, and more. Independence and integrity remain our core, and we strive to be a champion of the investor. Valuentum is based in the Chicagoland area. Valuentum is not a money manager, broker, or financial advisor. Valuentum is a publisher of financial information.

Aug 31, 2020

Berkshire Hathaway Is Finally Putting Its Enormous Cash Pile to Use
Image Shown: Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B are recovering from the steep pandemic-induced fall as the company has started to put its enormous cash-pile to work. On August 31, Berkshire Hathaway announced it had  “acquired slightly more than 5% of the outstanding shares in five of the leading Japanese trading companies” and that the firm considered these to be “passive stakes.” Those positions were acquired over approximately the past year through purchases made on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Here are the five companies in alphabetical order (by ticker): Itochu Corporation, Marubeni Corporation, Mitsui & Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Corporation, and Sumitomo Corporation.

Aug 21, 2020

Just How Good Have We Been?
Image: We have been absolutely pounding the table on big cap tech and large cap growth for many months now. It has been one of the rare buckets to have done well this year. By well, we mean superb. Source: Zerohedge. After capping off one of the best years in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio in 2019, we highlighted broad market put option ideas in late February and early March--right before the COVID-19 crash that shocked the markets. Then, just about right near the bottom, we highlighted 17 of 20 outperforming ideas--strong net-cash-rich, free-cash-flow generating powerhouses with strong secular growth tailwinds. We then went all-in in the newsletter portfolios in late April, just in time for the best 100 trading days in the S&P 500 in history. But perhaps the chart above says even more. You know that we have been absolutely pounding the table on large cap growth, big cap tech, and the NASDAQ, and the bucket of large cap growth is up 23% this year, significantly ahead of any other style. Significantly.

Aug 20, 2020

ALERT: Newsletter Portfolio Changes; Investing Is Simple, Not Easy