CSCO

Capital Appreciation or Dividend Growth?

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Image source: David Mulder By Brian Nelson, CFA Hope you are doing great! We had one question why we didn’t include an evaluation of the six ideas that were closed in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio during 2019. Of course, these ideas matter, but let’s walk through why. For example, one dividend growth idea that was closed during 2019 was Xilinx (XLNX), with the stock ending 2018 at a close price of $85.17 (it opened 2019 at $83.39) surging to $116.55 by February 14, 2019 (the low on the session of its close date) for a ~37% gain in a very short time (excluding the $0.36/share dividend it paid along the way). Xilinx was a huge winner in the Dividend … Read more

Valuentum Exclusive Success Rates Trump Even the Best Quant Hedge Funds

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Image: President of Investment Research Brian Nelson, CFA By Brian Nelson, CFA A new book, “The Man Who Solved the Market,” hit bookshelves last year, and thus far it has been a hit. The text goes into the story of quant hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and its hedge fund, the Medallion Fund, which has put up mammoth returns since inception. Though the book focuses more on the life and times of founder Jim Simons and dedicated only a page or two to the fall of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), another quant fund that went belly-up during the late 1990s, it was nonetheless a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable read. But why I am bringing up one of the most successful quant … Read more

Dividend Growth Newsletter Portfolio Delivers Again in 2019

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Dividend Growth Newsletter Portfolio Delivers Again in 2019   —  Note: Due to the New Year holiday, we will be releasing the January 2020 editions of the Dividend Growth Newsletter and High Yield Dividend Newsletter Thursday, January 2.  —  By Brian Nelson, CFA    Hi everyone!   I haven’t forgotten about you, our dividend growth friends. At Valuentum, we’re huge fans of dividend growth stocks, and we use our valuation expertise to augment a newsletter portfolio of some of the best dividend growers on the market. Unlike other shops and most blogs that focus more on dividend growth track records, we also like to look forward, not only in the application of the forward-looking Dividend Cushion ratio, but also as … Read more

5 Things We Learned in 2019

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5 Things We Learned in 2019      “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” — George Orwell By Brian Nelson, CFA    I’m looking at the beautiful Smoky Mountains in Tennessee as I’m writing this piece. I hope that you and yours are having a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. I wanted to share with you a few things that I think investors learned during 2019. Before I do, however, you’re probably wondering why I decided to lead in with this particular quote from Orwell. — — The quote, in some ways, is a reflection of how I think many approach truth in finance. Maybe they don’t … Read more

2019: Another Market Beating Year for the Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio!

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2019: Another Market Beating Year for the Best Ideas Newsletter Portfolio! — Summary: — We estimate thus far the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio return has beat the S&P 500 by 2.8 percentage points during 2019 (34.4% versus 31.6% for the S&P 500, as measured by the SPY). — Our move to overweight Apple, Facebook, and Visa worked out wonderfully for members during 2019. We continue to overweight big winners, and we credit this to our team’s conviction in our very best ideas. —  We also made quite the savvy move in rolling over a solid gain in Chipotle (60%+) into even more shares of Apple stock during the year. We’re putting some of the best ideas right in front of … Read more

Cisco, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, and PayPal in the News

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By Callum Turcan and Brian Nelson, CFA In alphabetical order by ticker symbol: CSCO, INTC, JNJ, PYPL Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO) announced on December 16 it was acquiring Exablaze, and the deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter of Cisco’s fiscal 2020. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. For reference, Cisco’s first quarter of fiscal 2020 ended on October 26, 2019. Australian-based Exablaze offers services to high-frequency traders by designing and manufacturing “advanced network devices aimed at reducing latency and improving network performance” and Cisco plans to integrate Exabalze’s technology into its own offerings. That will allow Cisco to offer its customers better field programmable gate array (‘FPGA’) technology and beyond high-frequency trading, there’s plenty of room for upside … Read more

Our Reports on Stocks in the Communications Equipment Space

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Image Source: Seth Stoll Structure of the Networking Equipment Industry Firms in the networking equipment industry provide products for transporting data, voice, and video within businesses and around the world. Participants must adapt to address virtualization/cloud-driven needs in the enterprise data center market; the convergence of video, collaboration, and networked mobility technologies; and the move toward programmable, virtual networks. The industry is characterized by low barriers to entry, rapid technological change and significant pricing competition. Gross margins can be volatile and should be watched closely. We don’t like the structure of the group. We’ve optimized our tehnology coverage. To access the reports, please select here.

Economic Commentary: Marks, Dalio, and the Discount Rate

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Image Source: Mike Cohen We sat down with the Valuentum team to discuss their latest thoughts on recent economic developments. To kick off the conversation, let’s start with the team’s views on the latest memo from Oaktree’s Howard Marks: Mysterious. For those that don’t know Howard, he is the Director and Co-Chairman of Oaktree, which managed about $122 billion in AUM, as of September 2019. The memo goes into depth on the reasons for negative interest rates, the impact of negative interest rates, and opines on whether the US will ever see negative interest rates. Then, we’ll go from there! Brian Nelson: The concept of negative interest rates is not merely academic, but they have far-reaching implications across the global … Read more

Cisco Remains a Free Cash Flow Cow Supported By a Solid Net Cash Position

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Image Shown: A breakdown of Cisco Systems Inc’s revenue as of the end of its fiscal 2019. Image Source: Cisco Systems – Fiscal 2019 Annual Report By Callum Turcan On November 13, Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported first quarter earnings for its fiscal 2020 (period ended October 26, 2019) that saw shares of CSCO sell off on November 14. That was likely due to the weak guidance management put out for the second quarter of the firm’s fiscal 2020, but we continue to like Cisco’s quality free cash flows and net cash balance. Cisco’s GAAP revenues came in at $13.2 billion last quarter, up 1% year-over-year, and that growth rate rises to 2% when excluding sales related to the divestiture of … Read more

Economic Commentary: Robots, Value Trap, and Politics on the Markets

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Tickerized for stocks in the DIA. Valuentum sat down for the latest installment of its periodic economic commentary, and the team tackled a wide array of topics, from robots on Wall Street, to President of Investment Research Brian Nelson’s new book Value Trap, to political influence on the markets and boyond. Let’s set the stage with a prompt from a recent Bloomberg article, “The Master of Robots…Coming for Wall Street:” “The problem is, computer-powered strategies are struggling to live up to the hype, with a Eurekahedge index of AI hedge funds lagging peers in recent years. That spells opportunity for the likes of Lopez de Prado with his outfit True Positive Technologies — a dig at the erroneous conclusions derived … Read more