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Hi everyone! — We continue to be huge believers in the concept of enterprise valuation, which emphasizes the key cash-based sources of intrinsic value–net cash on the balance sheet and strong and growing future expected free cash flows. Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) remain two of the most underpriced ideas on the market today, and we remain huge fans of their tremendous long-term investment prospects. — There are a couple things worth reminding readers, however. A good relevant rule of thumb I learned early in my career working for my first portfolio manager is that a stock’s return in the near term is driven roughly 40% by the market, 30% by the industry it operates in, and 30% … Read more

Nelson: I Have Been Wrong About the Prospect of Near-Term Inflationary-Driven Earnings Tailwinds

Transcript During the past several weeks, we’ve grown increasingly concerned about the health of consumer-tied entities across not only the consumer staples but also the consumer discretionary spaces. Many consumer staples entities, while raising prices, aren’t raising them fast enough to drive operating-income and bottom-line expansion, while many consumer-discretionary companies are facing higher freight and logistics costs and weaker performance in China, perhaps best revealed by Nike’s most recently-reported quarter, where inventory advanced 23% compared to the prior-year period. The tell-tale sign about the health of the consumer may be Amazon (AMZN) Prime Day, which is coming up on July 12-13, but based on many of the reports we’ve monitored this past earnings season, even if sales are strong on … Read more

Dividend Growth Idea Oracle Showing Serious Growth Momentum

Image Source: Oracle Corporation – September 2019 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan On June 13, Oracle Corporation (ORCL) reported fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2022 (period ended May 31, 2022) that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. The tech giant also provided favorable constant currency revenue growth guidance for its cloud businesses for fiscal 2023. Shares of ORCL initially surged higher in the wake of its latest earnings report before drifting modestly lower along the decline in broader equity markets. We include Oracle as an idea in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio and shares of ORCL yield ~1.9% as of this writing. Quarterly Update In the fiscal fourth quarter, Oracle’s GAAP revenues grew by 5% year-over-year and were up … Read more

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

Image: Erica Nicol Takeaways: 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 … Read more

The Metaverse: Qualcomm Expands Partnership with Microsoft

Image Source: Qualcomm Inc – November 2021 Investor Day Presentation By Callum Turcan A lot of attention has been directed towards the idea of a metaverse, which in short is an expansive digital universe where users can interact with one another via digital avatars of themselves (or whatever avatar the user prefers). This universe could, in theory, combine the functionality of computers and smartphones with almost every digital platform and application in existence. Users could perform both productivity-related activities (collaborating on work projects, holding team meetings, working with clients) and leisure-related activities (playing games with friends and family, meeting up with distant relatives, watching concerts, other live events, TV shows, and movies) in a seamless fashion. The user would not … Read more

Adobe Signals Near Term Growth Rate Slowing Down, Longer Term Outlook Still Quite Bright

Image Source: Adobe Inc – December 2021 Financial Analysts Meeting IR Presentation By Callum Turcan On December 16, Adobe Inc (ADBE) reported fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended December 3, 2021) that modestly beat consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. However, shares of ADBE plummeted in the wake of its latest earnings report as management signaled that the firm’s near term growth rate would slow down in fiscal 2022 versus levels seen in fiscal 2021. Investors were apparently hoping for more, though in our view, Adobe’s longer term growth outlook is still quite bright. Our fair value estimate sits at $576 per share of Adobe. Earnings Update The company’s GAAP revenues were up 20% year-over-year last fiscal quarter, reaching … Read more

Hard Work and the Trust That Binds

Image Source: Terry Johnson By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ll have our traditional Valuentum Weekly email coming out on Sunday, and I’m excited to say our team is putting the finishing touches on our technology industry update, so we’ll have a whole bunch of fresh reports for you to look at Sunday evening/Monday morning. 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 … Read more

Large Cap Growth Has More Room To Run

“The stylistic area of large cap growth has been one of our favorite areas because of the strong net cash rich, free cash flow generating, secular growth powerhouses that make up much of the space. The image is a rundown of the key Valuentum statistics for the top 15 holdings of the Schwab U.S. Large Cap Growth ETF (SCHG). We believe where large cap growth goes, so does the broader market, considering the hefty weightings of some of these stocks in other broad-based indices. Based on the high end of our fair value estimate range for this group of bellwethers, the broader U.S. markets still have room to run, to the tune of 7%+, despite the many highs already reached … Read more

ICYMI — Video: Exclusive 2020 — Furthering the Financial Discipline

ICYMI — Video: Exclusive 2020 — Furthering the Financial Discipline — — In this 40+ minute video jam-packed with must-watch content, Valuentum’s President Brian Nelson talks about the Theory of Universal Valuation and how his work is furthering the financial discipline. Learn the pitfalls of factor investing and modern portfolio theory and how the efficient markets hypothesis holds little substance in the wake of COVID-19. He’ll talk about which companies Valuentum likes and why, and which areas he’s avoiding. This and more in Valuentum’s 2020 Exclusive conference call.   Note: This video was originally published August 2, 2020.    To watch the video >>   The Theory of Universal Valuation —– Valuentum members have access to our 16-page stock reports, … Read more

ALERT: Raising Cash in the Newsletter Portfolios

January 27, 2021 ALERT: Raising Cash in the Newsletter Portfolios We are raising the cash position in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio to 10%-20%. — By Brian Nelson, CFA — Our research has been absolutely fantastic for a long time, but 2020 may have been our best year yet. You can read the 2020 recap here. With the S&P 500 trading within our fair value estimate range of 3,530-3,920 (and the markets rolling over while showing signs of abnormal behavior), we’re raising the cash position in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio to 10%-20%. — For more conservative investors, the high end of this range may even be larger, especially … Read more