What Causes Fair Value Estimates to Change?

Image: A screenshot of the discounted cash-flow model learning tool for individual investors. By Brian Nelson, CFA If you’ve been a member of Valuentum for a while, you’ll notice that when we update a stock report, our estimate of a company’s fair value and the firm’s Valuentum Buying Index ratings can change. This is completely normal and should be expected (over time, companies generate cash and stock prices change). But sometimes the changes can be confusing, particularly if they are material (i.e. 10%, 20%, or more). In this article, let’s talk about why changes are standard operating procedure for investment research publishers. First, some background. Our estimate of a company’s fair value is driven by myriad factors. To derive a … Read more

There Will Be Volatility

By Brian Nelson, CFA Last year, 2022, was a big test for equity investors, and the downside volatility that we witnessed during the year wasn’t comfortable, to say the least. Following the COVID-19 crash and rebound during 2020, and then the market surge in 2021, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say many investors’ heads are probably still spinning from all the volatility witnessed to start this decade. That said, part of what we’ve been warning about the past few years with respect to the equity market, especially in Value Trap, is that the proliferation of price-agnostic trading (e.g. quant, machine/algorithmic trading, etc.) will only lead to more and more market volatility, so while we were somewhat surprised by last … Read more

Walmart Warns: “Prices Are Still High and There Is Considerable Pressure on the Consumer”

  Image Source: Mike Mozart By Brian Nelson, CFA As we wrote in “The Fed ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop” in early January, the trade-down trends that we’re seeing in big box retail and with groceries, more generally, are interesting. Inflation started to accelerate with food-at-home prices moving aggressively higher in early 2022, and consumers have been trading down to better value. It probably wasn’t until egg prices soared, however — driven in part by a shortage of egg laying chickens (not just inflationary pressures) – that tipped everyday consumers to budget more cautiously, and the largest big box retailer in Walmart (WMT) is seeing this impact first-hand. Here’s what’s happening on the ground, per Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon on the … Read more

Online Sports Betting Surges But DraftKings’ Cash Burn Continues to Intensify; We Prefer More Conservative Gaming Plays Such as Churchill Downs

Image: Online sports betting platform DraftKings continues to burn through hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Data: SEC Filings, Seeking Alpha. By Brian Nelson, CFA Sports betting is now legal in 36 states and mobile sports betting is now legal in 26 states, and more states are expected to legalize sports betting in 2023. According to a report from Grand View Research, the global sports betting market is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate north of 10% through 2030. In 2022 alone, it is estimated that Americans wagered roughly $80 billion betting on sports online. The NFL is among the biggest draws, and some estimate that more than 50 million American adults bet on the Super … Read more

Video: How Many Stocks Should You Own?

Video: Valuentum’s President of Investment Research, Brian Nelson, CFA, explains the importance of diversification, how to think about firm-specific and systematic risk, how many stocks one should own to achieve 90% of the diversification benefits, how to think about active asset allocation versus active equity management, and why diversification is a means to achieve goals, not the goal itself. A content-packed 14-minute video. Don’t miss it! –——— Tickerized for holdings in the ARKK. Also tickerized for META, PYPL. Brian Nelson owns shares in SPY, SCHG, QQQ, DIA, VOT, BITO, and IWM. Valuentum owns SPY, SCHG, QQQ, VOO, and DIA. Brian Nelson’s household owns shares in HON, DIS, HAS, NKE. Some of the other securities written about in this article may … Read more

We’ve Suspended Coverage of Stocks in the Disruptive Innovation Industry

Order the Exclusive publication here to gain access to idea generation that covers some of the most innovative stocks. As a member to the Exclusive publication, you’ll receive one income idea, one capital appreciation idea, and one short idea consideration each month! Order today >> — We’ve suspended coverage of stocks in the ‘Disruptive Innovation’ industry. The ‘Disruptive Innovation’ industry is unique in almost every way. The companies included don’t necessarily share a similar traditional industry or sector make-up, but they do share one big thing in common: They continue to disrupt the traditional way of doing things. Carvana is changing how consumers buy used cars, Roku is leading the streaming charge against linear TV, Teradyne’s industrial robotics technology is … Read more

Some Questions Answered: The Fair Value Estimate Range and ROIC

Q: In the 16-page stock reports, why doesn’t the ‘percentage undervalued / overvalued’ match up to the actual discount/premium to Valuentum’s fair value estimate of the company? A: We view the intrinsic value of a company as a Fair Value Range, not necessarily a single point estimate, so the undervalued and overvalued calculations match up to either the low fair value estimate or high fair value estimate, respectively. Within the context of a margin of safety, we wouldn’t necessarily view a company to be worth precisely $55 per share, for example; instead we’d view the company as worth between $50 (low end fair value estimate) and $60 per share (high end fair value estimate), with the low and high fair … 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

SPACs Are Good for Markets, Not SPAC-tacular for Investors

Image: Performance of the Defiance NextGen SPAC IPO ETF (SPAK), where “a 60% weighting is applied to IPO companies derived from SPACs and 40% is allocated to common stock of newly listed Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”), ex-warrants” has been roughly flat since inception in October 2020.   By Brian Nelson, CFA What a time to be an investor…ehem, speculator! Cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and now the boom in Special Purchase Acquisition Companies, more commonly known as SPACs. First, the good: We like that SPACs will create more publicly listed companies to improve investor choice because the number of publicly traded companies has been dangerously shrinking in recent years…but that’s really all we like about them. A SPAC is just … Read more

Two Exciting Names for Your Radar: PENN, SPCE

“Davey the Day Trader” meets space flight in this article that sums up the goings-on at two exciting companies, Penn National and Virgin Galactic. We think shares of PENN are fairly valued at the moment, and we won’t be taking a “flier” on Virgin Galactic, but we still think it is one worth watching. By Brian Nelson, CFA Penn National Gaming (PENN) Image Source: Penn National Gaming Dave Portnoy, “Davey the Day Trader,” has taken the investment community by storm, and not just because he lost a cool mil on Remark (MARK). He’s been taking on the “suits” of Wall Street as he calls it, and while the entertainment “value” is excellent, there’s just not much going on other than … Read more