Oracle Expects Its Solid Revenue Growth Trajectory Will Continue Into This Fiscal Quarter

Image Source: Oracle Corporation – September 2019 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan On March 10, Oracle Corporation (ORCL) reported third quarter earnings for fiscal 2022 (period ended February 28, 2022) that matched consensus top-line estimates but missed consensus bottom-line estimates. The company’s revenue growth came in at a decent clip last fiscal quarter, and that trajectory is expected to continue into the current fiscal quarter, according to guidance management announced during Oracle’s latest earnings call. We include Oracle as an idea in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, and shares of ORCL yield ~1.7% as of this writing. Financial Update In the fiscal third quarter, Oracle’s GAAP revenues grew 4% and its non-GAAP constant currency revenues grew 7% year-over-year. Strong growth at … 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

Valuentum’s Brian Nelson in CFA Institute’s ‘Enterprising Investor’

From CFA Institute’s ‘Enterprising Investor’: — By Brian Nelson, CFA — “I couldn’t sleep. I knew something was wrong. The numbers just didn’t make sense. For years, pipeline energy analysts seemed to be adjusting their valuation models for pipeline master limited partnership (MLP) stocks in order to explain what was happening to the price. — But why? Why adjust the models for one set of companies and not for another? Cash is cash and value is the measure of cash going into and out of a business. There aren’t different rules for different companies. Valuation is universal.” — To continue reading >> — —– — About Brian Michael Nelson, CFA Brian Michael Nelson, CFAPresident, Equity Research & ETF AnalysisE-mail: brian@valuentum.com Brian … Read more

Oracle Buys Cerner

Image Source: Oracle Corporation – September 2019 Financial Analyst Meeting Presentation By Callum Turcan Oracle Corporation (ORCL) is one of our favorite dividend growth ideas that also earns high marks as it concerns ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing standards. We use our proprietary ESG scoring matrix, which scores firms on a 1-100 scale (100 being the best), to gauge their adherence to ESG practices. Oracle scores a nice 96 ESG rating with a strong showing across all three categories. We include shares of ORCL as an idea in both the Dividend Growth Newsletter and our ESG Newsletter portfolios. The high end of our fair value estimate range sits at $101 per share of Oracle, comfortably above where shares are … 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

Oracle Shares Surge!

Image Source: Oracle Corporation – November 2019 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan Shares of Oracle Corporation (ORCL) surged in the wake of the tech giant reporting its second-quarter fiscal 2022 earnings (period ended November 30, 2021) on December 9, which beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. We include Oracle as an idea in both the Dividend Growth Newsletter and ESG Newsletter portfolios (more on that here), and we couldn’t be more pleased with the company’s performance of late. Its pivot towards cloud-oriented offerings is playing out quite favorably as Oracle’s growth outlook is now quite bright. Earnings Update and Outlook Oracle’s GAAP revenues were up 6% year-over-year last fiscal quarter, hitting $10.4 billion. This was made possible via strong … Read more

Asset Allocators Fail, Advisors Should Pick Stocks, Save Investors $34 Billion Annually

  Image: The area of large cap growth has trounced that of the 60/40 stock/bond portfolio for more than a decade. Image Source: Morningstar. By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ve all heard the stories. Professional stock pickers can’t beat a bunch of monkeys throwing darts at the pages of the WSJ. A cows’ investment decisions are just as good as the pros’. Stock prices reflect all available information so not even professionals have an edge (e.g. the efficient markets hypothesis). Most professionals can’t outperform their respective benchmarks, so how could mom and pop? Look at this from one of today’s bloggers: The traditional argument, which you’ve probably heard many times before, goes as follows: since most people (even the professionals) can’t … 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

The Investment Case for More Gender Diversity

Image: The Impact Shares’ YWCA Women’s Empowerment ETF (WOMN) has trounced the S&P 500 since inception, while the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE) has bested the quantitatively-hailed small cap value ETF over the same time period. By Valuentum Analysts There has been a plethora of research over the years regarding the value of diversity on teams, in corporate boardrooms, and across asset management. The CFA Institute defines diversity as “the spectrum of human attributes, perspectives, identities, and backgrounds,” and notes that “the discussion around motivations for pursuing diversity in investment management often revolves around two main areas: ‘the business case for diversity’ (i.e., with more diverse perspectives, business outcomes will improve) and ‘because it is the right thing … Read more