US Congress Is Getting Ready to Pass a Massive ~$2.2 Trillion Fiscal Stimulus Bill

Image Shown: US equities have started to recover some of their lost ground as the likelihood that the US Congress will pass a massive ~$2.2 trillion fiscal stimulus and emergency spending package, dubbed the CARES Act, has increased significantly over the past week as seen through the bounce in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). President Trump has clearly indicated that he intends to sign such a bill into law as soon as possible, with the US House of Representatives expected to take up the legislation this upcoming Friday morning on March 27. By Callum Turcan On March 25, the US Senate worked late into the night to secure a bipartisan compromise on a massive ~$2.2 trillion fiscal stimulus … Read more

Valuentum Weekly: Yields on New Series I Savings Bonds Have Soared!

The Valuentum Weekly is a brand-new weekly market commentary from Valuentum Securities, released each weekend in digital form. The Valuentum Weekly offers members a weekly synopsis of the markets and major events. It will be straight and to-the-point. Our goal is to deliver to you the latest information and insights. We welcome your feedback on how we can make the Valuentum Weekly as useful and as relevant for you as ever! — —– — Markets  — The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures are all indicated up Sunday night (March 13), but that may not mean much when trading kicks off tomorrow. The start to 2022 has been one of the worst stretches during the past decade, but broader … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending February 1

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending February 1. 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 AFLAC (AFL): now $0.27 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.26. ALLETE (ALE): now $0.5875 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.56. Alliance Resource Partners (ARLP): now $0.53 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.525. Anthem (ANTM): now $0.80 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.75. Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG): now $0.43 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.41. Bank of Botetourt (BORT): now $0.16 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.15. … Read more

Analyzing Chevron and Important Updates in the Global Energy Industry

Image Source: Chevron Corporation – November 2019 IR Presentation Summary In this note, let’s cover the current state of raw energy resource prices in North America and around the world. We’ll analyze Chevron’s 2020 capital investment and exploration budget, in particular, and the global energy industry at-large. Shares of CVX appear generously valued as of this writing given the numerous headwinds facing the energy industry going forward. By Callum Turcan The world of oil and gas equities has been battling with persistently low raw energy resource prices for some time now. Back in the middle of 2014, a barrel of light sweet crude delivered to Cushing, Oklahoma (home of the West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, benchmark), would fetch over $100. Now … Read more

Still Bullish — Stocks for the Long Run!

Excuses not to pick stocks are only exposing biases these days. By Brian Nelson, CFA The S&P 500 (SPY), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) and Nasdaq (QQQ) continue to hover near all-time highs, and all appears well. We maintain our bullish take on the markets and believe that we are in the early innings of a long bull market that started following the washout March 2020 during the depths of the COVID-19 meltdown. Stock bull markets tend to average about 4.4 years in duration, with the last one enduring ~11 years, while bear markets are very abrupt, lasting only 11.3 months on average, the last one a very short 1.1 months, according to data from First Trust. We’re about 15 … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of January 31

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending January 31. 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                          AES (AES): now $0.1759 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.1725. ALLETE (ALE): now $0.730 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.705. Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT): now $0.46 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.37. Archrock (AROC): now $0.190 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.175. Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG): now $0.65 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.60. Baker Hughes (BKR): now $0.23 per share quarterly dividend, was … Read more

Which Sectors Are Leading the Market Higher? And Why Is This Important?

Missed the ’13 Most Important Steps to Understand the Stock Market’? Click here. Demand academic evidence regarding the efficacy of the Valuentum process? Click here. Tobias J. Moskowitz and Mark Grinblatt documented the “strong and prevalent momentum effect in industry components of stock returns which accounts for much of the individual stock momentum anomaly” in their scholarly article published in the Journal of Finance, ‘Do Industries Explain Momentum’ (download here; stable link here; updated by Fraulo and Nguyen here). Moskowitz and Grinblatt also concluded that “industry momentum investment strategies, which buy stocks from past winning industries and sell stocks from past losing industries, appear highly profitable.” Such findings are consistent with the ‘Case for the Valuentum Style of Investing,’ and … Read more

Nelson on Bogle, Part I

“The kind of commentary that makes broad generalizations about expectations of future returns is exactly why people are so eager to get into passive investment strategies. Since the 1920s, it seems as though the individual investor has assumed the stock market was rigged or impossible for average Joes to figure out, but instead of the “I’ll get it next time” mentality that was present leading to the crash of ’29, individual investors have “evolved” to the point that now the idea is if you can’t beat the market, just buy the whole thing. Leaders like Bogle continue to take tremendous shortcuts in explaining forecasts, leaving the average investor like a student trying to copy math homework off a peer that … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending October 28

Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending October 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 Abaxis (ABAX): now $0.14 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.12. AbbVie (ABBV): now $0.64 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.57. AFLAC (AFL): now $0.43 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.41. Alexander & Baldwin (ALEX): now $0.07 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.06. Alon USA Partners (ALDW): now $0.15 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.14. American Electric Power (AEP): now $0.59 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.56. … Read more

There Is Milk At The Store

This article first appeared in the September edition of the High Yield Dividend Newsletter. For more information about this publication, please see here. “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” — Winston Churchill By Brian Nelson, CFA Very few of us could have imagined that we’d witness the bull market that began on that fateful day in March 2009 that might very well mark a generational low. In 2009, major investment banks around the globe were struggling to survive, and the fallout in the mortgage markets left the banks holding paper that nobody wanted to own, let alone buy. The global financial system … Read more