Hut 8 Mining Is an Interesting Play on Cryptocurrencies

Image Source: Hut 8 Mining Corporation – November 2021 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan Hut 8 Mining Corporation (HUT) is headquartered in Toronto, Canada (in the province of Ontario), and “mines” digital assets from two operations in Alberta, Canada (in the city of Medicine Hat and town of Drumheller). The firm is in the process of developing a third mining operation in Ontario, Canada, at the small city of North Bay, having secured a long-term power purchase agreement with Validus Power Corp. Overview  Though Hut 8 Mining mines for both bitcoin (BITO) and ether, two of the most popular cryptocurrencies, when it mines for Ether it historically has preferred to get paid in bitcoin. Hut 8 Mining has built up … 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

FinTech Stocks Still Attractive, Market Overreacting to Visa’s Cross-Border Travel Outlook

Image: Visa continues to rake in the free cash flow. Though its outlook is clouded somewhat by recovering cross-border travel transaction volumes, we still like its asset-light, free-cash-flow rich business model. By Brian Nelson, CFA It’s easy to lose sight of everyday life when we hear stories about the latest and greatest cryptocurrency or the next iteration of yet another ETF that centers on one theme or another, but when we take a step back, almost all of us are still using and continuing to use one of a few payment options. Maybe it’s your Visa (V) Card, your Mastercard (MA), Discover (DFS) Card, American Express (AXP) Card, Capital One Financial (COH) Card or perhaps PayPal (PYPL), Stripe, or Square … Read more

Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio Soars!

Image shown: The top weighted ideas in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio continued to lead the charge during the trading session Friday, July 23. Facebook and Alphabet rallied on favorable reports from social media peers, while Vertex continues to recover thanks in part to encouraging views on CRISPR technology, while Visa looks to be back on track. DPZ had a strong trading session July 22 and experienced some profit taking. Image source: Seeking Alpha.  By Brian Nelson, CFA Add options commentary to your membership >> During the trading session July 23, shares of top-weighted Facebook (FB) surged 5.3%, to close at $369.79. In December 2018, Facebook’s shares were trading hands in the mid-$120s, and the past few years have been … Read more

Bank Earnings Solid During Second Quarter 2021

Image Source: Bank of America Corporation – Second Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation In Alphabetical Order by Ticker: BAC, MS, JPM By Callum Turcan In this note, we cover three recent reports from the banking industry as earnings season gets underway. Ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) vaccine distribution efforts are enabling the domestic economy to reopen in earnest, and consumers are beginning to return to “pre-pandemic activities,” though the risk of variants remains. In our view, the outlook for the US economy is quite bright. The outlook for net interest margins (‘NIMs’) should improve alongside the domestic economy, though yields remain rather low as of this writing and lackluster NIMs weighed on the performance of the banking space at-large last quarter. … Read more

10 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE AT VALUENTUM

Tickerized for the DIA. ———- About Our Name But how, you will ask, does one decide what [stocks are] “attractive”? Most analysts feel they must choose between two approaches customarily thought to be in opposition: “value” and “growth,”…We view that as fuzzy thinking…Growth is always a component of value [and] the very term “value investing” is redundant.                          — Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway annual report, 1992 At Valuentum, we take Buffett’s thoughts one step further. We think the best opportunities arise from an understanding of a variety of investing disciplines in order to identify the most attractive stocks at any given time. Valuentum therefore analyzes each stock across a wide spectrum of philosophies, from deep value through momentum investing. And a combination of the … Read more

Two Alerts and Bull Market On!

By Brian Nelson, CFA It’s very hard not to be bullish on the stock market these days. The prudence exercised by many of the largest companies in the S&P 500 remains unprecedented, in our view. Some of the best companies out there have tremendous balance sheets, as evidenced by huge net cash positions. Perhaps two of our favorite companies, Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook (FB) are the best examples of this, but Apple (AAPL) still retains quite the large net cash hoard as it works to net-cash breakeven. As we look at the next couple years, most investors will continue to focus on the Fed. We’ve seen this song and dance following the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) that wreaked havoc on … Read more

ICYMI: Watch Valuentum’s November 2019 Presentation on ‘Value Trap’ Now!

Watch Valuentum’s November 2019 Presentation on ‘Value Trap’ Now! — To view the November 2019 presentation of Valuentum’s book, Value Trap, please select the following link to continue: — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-n9o9gYKdE&feature=youtu.be — — The November 2019 presentation to the Los Angeles chapter of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) of Valuentum’s President of Investment Research Brian M. Nelson’s new book, Value Trap, covers the pitfalls of valuation multiple analysis, traditional quantitative analysis (e.g., value factor, size factor) and the great contradiction between factor investing and the efficient markets hypothesis.  — The November 2019 presentation shows how enterprise valuation rests at the intersection of behavioral economics, quantitative theory, equity valuation and therefore finance itself. Nelson talks about how enterprise valuation can be used … 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

Berkshire Hathaway Charging Higher

Image Shown: Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B stock are on a nice upward climb year-to-date, and we include BRK.B as an idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. By Callum Turcan On Saturday, May 1, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.A) (BRK.B) reported first quarter 2021 earnings that impressed, in our view. We include Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares as an idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and continue to be big fans of the firm and its management team, led by CEO and Chairman Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger. Some big news came out recently as it concerns the eventual management transition at Berkshire Hathaway. Reportedly, Greg Abel, who runs Berkshire Hathaway’s non-insurance operations, would take … Read more