Best Idea Disney’s Video Streaming Business Booms

Image Shown: The Walt Disney Company’s video streaming growth ambitions showed signs of significant progress last fiscal quarter. Image Source: The Walt Disney Company – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2021 Earnings Press Release By Callum Turcan On August 12, The Walt Disney Company (DIS) reported third quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended July 3, 2021) that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Disney’s video streaming services reported a sharp uptick in paid subscribers while the financial performance of the segment that includes its theme park and resort operations staged an immense rebound. We continue to be huge fans of Disney’s capital appreciation upside and include shares of DIS as an idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Operations … Read more

High-Yielding AT&T Remains Free Cash Flow Cow

Image Shown: AT&T Inc’s core businesses in the wireless and fiber arenas continue to gain subscribers at a rapid pace, while its HBO/HBO Max offerings are also growing at a nice clip. Image Source: AT&T Inc – Second Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On July 22, AT&T Inc (T) reported second quarter 2021 earnings that beat both consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. The company added 1,156,000 net postpaid customers to its core ‘Mobility’ business including 789,000 net postpaid phone customers, aided by its lowest churn rates ever at just below 0.7%. AT&T also added 174,000 net prepaid phone customers while its AT&T Fiber business added 246,000 net customers last quarter. We include shares of AT&T as … Read more

ICYMI — Video: Exclusive 2020 — Furthering the Financial Discipline

ICYMI — Video: Exclusive 2020 — Furthering the Financial Discipline — — In this 40+ minute video jam-packed with must-watch content, Valuentum’s President Brian Nelson talks about the Theory of Universal Valuation and how his work is furthering the financial discipline. Learn the pitfalls of factor investing and modern portfolio theory and how the efficient markets hypothesis holds little substance in the wake of COVID-19. He’ll talk about which companies Valuentum likes and why, and which areas he’s avoiding. This and more in Valuentum’s 2020 Exclusive conference call.   Note: This video was originally published August 2, 2020.    To watch the video >>   The Theory of Universal Valuation —– Valuentum members have access to our 16-page stock reports, … Read more

Crown Castle Is a Great Income Growth Idea

Image Shown: Crown Castle International Corp has an expansive portfolio of shared wireless infrastructure assets that covers every major market in the US. Image Source: Crown Castle International Corp – First Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan Crown Castle International Corp (CCI) is a high-quality real estate investment trust (‘REIT’) that focuses on shared wireless infrastructure assets. Its expansive portfolio includes 40,000+ towers, ~80,000 route miles of fiber, and ~80,000 small cell nodes. According to Crown Castle, the REIT has a presence in every major US market. As of this writing, shares of CCI yield ~2.9%. Over the long haul, Crown Castle aims to grow its dividend per share and adjusted funds from operations (‘AFFO’) per share … Read more

AT&T Right-Sizing Dividend, WarnerMedia Joining Forces with Discovery

Image Shown: AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia unit is joining forces with Discovery Inc. This transaction, if it goes through as planned, will create another giant in the video streaming services industry. Image Source: Discovery Inc – Discovery Joining Forces with WarnerMedia IR Presentation By Callum Turcan Despite the upcoming rightsizing of its dividend payout in light of a pending spin-off, the telecommunications and media giant AT&T Inc (T) continues to be one of our favorite income generation ideas. We’re not making any changes to the newsletter portfolios at this time, and the recent news indicates AT&T’s balance sheet is about to improve significantly. Major Transaction On May 17, AT&T announced a major transaction with Discovery Inc (DISCA) that involves AT&T using a … Read more

Best Idea Disney’s Outlook Is Bright and Getting Brighter

Image Source: The Walt Disney Company – December 2020 Investor Day Presentation By Callum Turcan On May 13, The Walt Disney Company (DIS) reported second quarter fiscal 2021 earnings (period ended April 3, 2021) that beat consensus bottom-line estimates but missed consensus top-line estimates. Investors were dismayed that the company’s paid video streaming subscriber base did not grow by as much as expected. However, we are not worried as Disney’s outlook is bright and getting brighter. Though the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic has weighed negatively on its business, ongoing vaccine distribution efforts are slowly enabling Disney to open its numerous theme park and resort operations back up (historically, these assets were Disney’s cash-flow cows). For instance, Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure … Read more

Good News from High Yielding AT&T

Image Source: AT&T By Brian Nelson, CFA On Thursday, April 22, AT&T (T) reported solid first-quarter results that gave the market confidence that it can make good on its payout to shareholders. The company offers high yield dividend investors an attractive risk-reward profile given its healthy earnings (and free cash flow) coverage of the dividend, in our opinion. During the period, AT&T’s consolidated revenue advanced 2.7% while adjusted diluted earnings per share came in at $0.86 versus $0.84 in last year’s quarter. Operating cash flow leapt 12% while free cash flow soared to $5.9 billion, up by more than half over the same tally in the year-ago period. Here’s what CEO John Stankey had to say about the quarter in … Read more

ViacomCBS Makes Big Bet on Streaming

Image Source: ViacomCBS Inc – Fourth Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan After Viacom and CBS were reunited in December 2019, the new entity ViacomCBS Inc (VIAC) has finally started to gain some traction on the video streaming front. The service CBS All Access, which has since been rebranded as Paramount+, was largely a dud and did not gain the level of attention that Walt Disney Company’s (DIS) Disney+ service (more on Disney’s video streaming successes here and here), AT&T Inc’s (T) HBO Max service (AT&T’s video streaming growth strategy is picking up steam as we covered here), or Netflix Inc’s (NFLX) namesake service (more on Netflix here) were able to generate. For background, ViacomCBS’s operations include … Read more

AT&T’s Video Streaming Growth Story Is Starting to Take Flight

Image Source: AT&T Inc – 2021 Investor & Analyst Day Presentation By Callum Turcan On March 12, AT&T Inc (T) hosted its 2021 Analyst & Investor Day event. In conjunction with the event, AT&T issued long-term financial and operational guidance which included a substantial upward revision in its expected HBO/HBO Max subscriber growth over the coming years. We continue to be big fans of AT&T as a high yielding opportunity and include AT&T as an idea in the High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio (more here). As of this writing, shares of AT&T yield ~7.0%. Background Information In June 2018, AT&T completed its acquisition of Time Warner which gave AT&T the keys to Home Box Office (‘HBO’). A pillar of AT&T’s … Read more

Two High-Quality REITs Report Earnings: Crown Castle and Digital Realty

Image Shown: Crown Castle International Corp. forecasts that its core financial metrics will continue to grow in 2021. Image Source: Crown Castle International Corp. – Fourth Quarter of 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan Searching for lofty yields in a low interest rate environment comes with substantial risks as high yields can sometimes be more indicative of the expected headwinds facing the company or entity in question rather than an excellent risk-reward opportunity. We published an article back in September 2020 titled High Yield Dividend Income Investing in a Time of Need (link here) that highlighted our thoughts on this issue and why we think investors in high-yielding enterprises need to keep their guards up. All yields–even of the … Read more