2022 Oil & Gas Market Update: “The Outlook for Crude Oil Prices Remains Quite Bullish”

Transcript Hello, this is Callum Turcan, Associate Director of Research at Valuentum Securities. WTI and Brent have pulled back moderately from recent highs, though near-term futures remain just above $100 per barrel which is well above levels seen last year. As of early July, both WTI and Brent are in backwardation, meaning spot prices are trading at a higher price than later dated future contracts. In other words, the trajectory of future crude oil prices is expected to have a downward slope. Please note that backwardation does not mean that things are going to rapidly deteriorate for the global energy complex, as this dynamic is due to global oil inventories steadily declining over the past two years or so. Backwardation … 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

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 Theses on Best Ideas Chevron and Exxon Mobil Playing Out

By Callum Turcan Raw energy resources pricing has surged higher during the past year with room to run. The global energy complex is on the rebound as demand for crude oil and refined petroleum products is steadily recovering from the worst of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. As demand for electricity and heating needs held up well during the pandemic, liquified natural gas prices (‘LNG’) put up a strong year in 2021 and remain elevated. The OPEC+ cartel is committed to slowly phasing out its crude oil supply curtailment agreement first enacted in 2020, effectively limiting growth in global oil supplies at a time when demand is rebounding at a brisk pace. We view the near-term outlook for the global energy … 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

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week October 8

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending October 8. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week Cadence Bancorporation (CADE): now $0.158 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.150. Caledonia Mining (CMCL): now $0.14 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.13. CF Bankshares (CFBK): now $0.04 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.03. Coterra Energy (CTRA): now $0.50 per share special dividend, was $0.11. Fortitude Gold (FTCO): now $0.04 per share monthly dividend, was $0.035. Mesabi Trust (MSB): now $1.42 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.09. … Read more

Valuentum: Now Bearish, We’ve Been Here Every Step of the Way

Valuentum Has Been Here Every Step of the Way   From the COVID-19 top in February 2020 to the COVID-19 bottom to the massive bull run through the end of 2021, we’ve been here for you.    2022 started out to be a rough year, catching many by surprise.   But Valuentum stayed positive. When the markets headed south in June, Valuentum stood its ground. On June 14, Valuentum said that “we still believe stocks could make a “huge rebound” in the near term.   We reiterated our views a few days later and on June 19, we said that “investors shouldn’t panic during this bear market” and that “stocks remain an attractive proposition at the moment and a very attractive consideration … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of February 23

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending February 23. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week                          ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. (ACAVF): now $0.16 per share dividend. Aker BP ASA (AKRBY): now $0.1738 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.1577. Allstate (ALL): now $0.92 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.89. AMERISAFE (ASMF): now $0.37 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.34. Analog Devices (ADI): now $0.92 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.86. Armada Hoffler Properties (AHH): now $0.205 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of February 28

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending February 28. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week                          AerCap (AER): now $0.27 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.25. Affinity Bancshares (AFBI): now $1.50 per share special dividend. Allstate (ALL): now $1.00 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.92. American Financial (AFG): now $2.00 per share special dividend, was $0.80. AMERISAFE (AMSF): now $0.39 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.37. Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD): now EUR 1.00 per share annual dividend, was EUR 0.82. Aura … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week November 12

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending November 12. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week Angel Oak Mortgage (AOMR): now $0.36 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.12. Assurant (AIZ): now $0.68 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.66. Astec (ASTE): now $0.12 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.11. Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (AY): now $0.435 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.430. Atmos Energy (ATO): now $0.68 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.63. Autoliv (ALV): now $0.64 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.62. Automatic … Read more