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Oracle Hits All-Time Highs; Larry Ellison Pumps AI Opportunity

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Image: Newsletter portfolio holding Oracle surges to all-time highs! “Oracle’s Gen2 Cloud has quickly become the number 1 choice for running Generative AI workloads. Why? Because Oracle has the highest performance, lowest cost GPU cluster technology in the world. NVIDIA (NVDA) themselves are using our clusters, including one with more than 4,000 GPUs, for their AI infrastructure. Our GPU clusters are built using the highest-bandwidth and lowest-latency RDMA network—and scale up to 32,000 GPUs. As a result, cutting edge companies doing LLM development such as Mosaic ML, Adept AI, Cohere plus 30 other AI development companies have recently signed contracts to purchase more than $2 billion of capacity in Oracle’s Gen2 Cloud.” – Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison By Brian … Read more

Adobe Acrobat Pro Prices Up 33%; Price Tag of Figma Deal Remains Overhang on Shares

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Image: Adobe’s long-term market opportunity is huge. Image Source: Adobe By Brian Nelson, CFA All things considered, fiscal 2022 was a solid year for Adobe (ADBE), as reported in its latest quarterly earnings report December 15. The company generated record revenue, operating income, and operating cash flow, and we loved that management is talking in terms of the “next decade of growth,” not next quarter or even next year. We like executive suites that are positioning their companies for the long run, and we think Chairman and CEO Shantanu Narayen has done a great job leading the charge. Adobe is among the most well-known software companies due in part to its Adobe Acrobat software. Almost anyone that has applied for a job has … Read more

Oracle Puts Up Huge Revenue Growth Number in Second Quarter Fiscal 2023 Results

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Image: Trailing four-quarter free cash flow trends at Oracle are strong but lumpy. Image Source: Oracle By Valuentum Analysts On December 12, Oracle Corporation (ORCL) reported better than expected second quarter fiscal 2023 results for the three months ended November 30. Total revenue advanced 18% in the quarter on a year-over-year basis, leaping 25% in constant currency, thanks in part to strong performance at its infrastructure and application cloud businesses. Non-GAAP operating income increased 5%–and 12% in constant currency–and its non-GAAP operating margin was 41% in the period. Fiscal second-quarter non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.21 beat the consensus estimate, despite foreign currency headwinds. We liked that we saw in the quarterly results, and we’ll be sticking with the company as one of … Read more

Oracle’s Long-Term Outlook Remains Bright

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Image: Oracle has some lofty targets for fiscal 2026, and we were encouraged by recent commentary from the firm. Image Source: Oracle By Brian Nelson, CFA Oracle Corp (ORCL) has been a strong relative performer during 2022, with shares sliding ~12% versus a market return that has been much worse during the year. Oracle recently offered an encouraging mid-cycle fiscal 2026 outlook, calling for $65 billion in total organic revenue, a 45% operating margin (including its recent acquisition of Cerner), and greater than 10% annual earnings per share growth in the coming years. At this writing, consensus expectations are for Oracle to achieve ~$49.2 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023, so this is no doubt good news, implying a strong … Read more

Serious Question: What Are You Looking At?

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Image: Stocks with the largest 52-week losses, according to YahooFinance. By Brian Nelson, CFA Thank goodness that you’re subscribed to a service that didn’t include any of the above as top ideas in their simulated newsletter portfolios. Many were chasing returns in 2021 and are now left holding the bag this year, but we stuck to our methodology and processes, and we didn’t expose members to tremendous risks. That’s what it’s all about.  With that said, let’s talk about how we successfully navigated a number of these terrible ideas in the Exclusive publication, a monthly resource that includes an income idea, a capital appreciation idea, and a short idea consideration, released to members each month on the 8th. Exclusive Long Ideas … Read more

Dividend Growth Idea Oracle Showing Serious Growth Momentum

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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

Large Cap Growth Has More Room To Run

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“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

June Dividend Growth Newsletter & Intrinsic Value Investing

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“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 — By Brian Nelson, CFA — To add our new options commentary to your membership, please register here ($500/year). — Hi everyone!  — We remain unequivocally bullish on the markets and intrinsic value investing. We believe value today rests within companies that have strong net cash positions (all cash less short- and long-term debt) and solid expected future free cash flows … Read more

Our Thoughts on Rackspace and Zoom Video Communications

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Image Source: Rackspace Technology Inc – Second Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation The appeal of the SaaS space is that these types of companies are asset-light and are light on capital expenditures, potentially allowing for meaningful free cash flows if scale is achieved. Secular growth tailwinds underpin their free cash flow growth trajectories, and the pandemic has accelerated changes that were already underway long before COVID-19 came into the picture. We appreciate that Rackspace is beginning to pay down its net debt load, though more work needs to be done on that front. Zoom Video Communications posted truly impressive results; however, we caution that there are many competitors in the live online video chat arena and staying on top … Read more

Stock Market Outlook for 2021

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By Valuentum Analysts February 8, 2021 2020 was one for the history books. We covered our thoughts and reflections on the past year in our “2020 Won’t Soon Be Forgotten” article (link here), and now we are looking towards the future. Global health authorities should be able to bring an end to the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic sooner than many had expected as several vaccines have already been improved for emergency use and several others appear increasingly likely to get approved. Global vaccine distribution activities are currently underway, and this should allow the world to slowly return to pre-pandemic activities. Before then, immense stimulus measures launched primarily in developed nations should support global economic activities until the public health crisis … Read more