ALERT: Raising Cash in the Newsletter Portfolios

January 27, 2021 ALERT: Raising Cash in the Newsletter Portfolios We are raising the cash position in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio to 10%-20%. — By Brian Nelson, CFA — Our research has been absolutely fantastic for a long time, but 2020 may have been our best year yet. You can read the 2020 recap here. With the S&P 500 trading within our fair value estimate range of 3,530-3,920 (and the markets rolling over while showing signs of abnormal behavior), we’re raising the cash position in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio to 10%-20%. — For more conservative investors, the high end of this range may even be larger, especially … Read more

Chipotle, Domino’s Continue to Deliver for Shareholders

Image Shown: Domino’s Pizza Inc aims to grow its market share in the US by leaning heavily on its delivery and digital operations, a realm the firm has significant competitive advantages in, as compared to leaning on carryout operations at physical stores. Image Source: Domino’s Pizza Inc – January 2021 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan In the restaurant industry, one thing the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic has made clear is that having drive thru operations, a strong online presence and efficient delivery services will be key to meeting consumer demand going forward. Physical restaurant locations that rely on indoor dinning will become relevant once again when the pandemic is contained, something the ongoing distribution of COVID-19 vaccines should help accomplish, but … Read more

ALERT: We’re Still Bullish! Some Portfolio Tweaks

By Brian Nelson, CFA Hi everybody: Trust you’re doing great, and hope you are enjoying your membership to Valuentum! We’ve received a number of questions from members during the past several weeks, and we’d like to address them briefly in this note. We will write a follow-up note in the coming days that goes into our broader outlook for 2021 and beyond. However, we want to get these takeaways to you as soon as possible, as our inboxes have been overflowing. For starters, if you haven’t read our market/analysis recap for the year 2020, please do so, “2020 Won’t Soon Be Forgotten.” Now on to the questions. First question: Is the stock market in a bubble? Answer: Absolutely not. We … Read more

McDonald’s: Holding Up Well During the Pandemic

By Brian Nelson, CFA Nothing seems to be able to stop McDonald’s. Remember the documentary Super Size Me (2004)? For those that may not have seen the award-winning film, director Morgan Spurlock filmed his experiences eating only McDonald’s food three times a day for a 30-day consecutive period. He made a point to eat every item on the menu, and if memory serves us well, anytime he was asked to “Super Size” his meal, he had to oblige. The documentary measured the effects of eating only McDonald’s food on his health in just this short period of time. During his McDonald’s-binge, Spurlock consumed an average of 5,000 calories a day, roughly twice that of a healthy diet, and he ended … Read more

News Brief: We Like Large Cap Growth, Big Cap Tech, and the NASDAQ

Image: Since 2010, a large cap growth ETF has outperformed the S&P 500 by nearly 150 percentage points (15,000 basis points). Since 2010, a large cap growth ETF has outperformed a small cap value ETF by over 275 percentage points, or 27,500 basis points (image not shown). We expect continued outperformance from companies within the large cap growth bucket. By Brian Nelson, CFA The markets have been see-sawing the past couple weeks as the global economy continues to recover and much of the world awaits the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election. We think the equity markets have largely factored in the forecasted epidemiology curve with respect to COVID-19, including infection spikes across the world, so recent market volatility … Read more

News Brief: Stay at Home Stocks, REITs, Housing, Oracle, and AT&T

Image: Number of COVID-19 cases reported weekly by WHO Region, and global deaths, 30 December 2019 through 18 October 2020. Source: WHO. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage on, though the healthcare community has become more adept at reducing the incidence of death given the many treatments now available to battle the disease. We continue to stay the course with the newsletter portfolios. Many of our favorites include Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet, and PayPal, among other moaty, net-cash-rich, free-cash-flow generating powerhouses tied to secular growth trends. Our focus remains on the long haul. The business models of many stay-at-home stocks are solid as they continue to reap the rewards of the accelerated trends of home office use and e-commerce proliferation. … Read more

Outperformance of Valuentum’s COVID-19 Ideas

Image: Valuentum’s COVID-19 ideas. Hypothetical returns are calculated on a price basis. — Dear members: —On March 17, Valuentum released its best ideas for the COVID-19 pandemic. The original article can be found at the following link, “Top Ten Ideas for Consideration Amid COVID-19.” The note is significant for two reasons: 1) it was released practically at the March bottom, and 2) it identified outperforming ideas, which on an equal-weight basis outperformed the S&P 500 since then by 20 percentage points, generating a hypothetical price-only return of 64.2% (the dividend adjustment is negligible since then so it was left out of the calculation). — Please note that this is the only list that we released for our top 10 ideas … Read more

3 Lessons in Portfolio Management Over 10 Years

Dear members: — We’re finally getting a pause in the rapid ascent of the markets on September 3rd. Though headlines may look scary and momentum/volatility investors could start to pile on to the downside, a modest retracement is actually a good thing. We continue to focus on the long haul with our processes, and we’re viewing the sell-off as profit taking, for the most part. — In the near term, the markets will also have to digest some speculators betting on mean reversion between “value” (cyclical) versus “growth” (secular), but we maintain the view that the value-versus-growth conversation is largely nonsense (see block quotes below), and mean reversion is something akin to the gamblers’ fallacy, in my humble opinion. Investors should also continue … Read more

Valuentum Website Overview

Overview of the key features of valuentum.com/ (03:55). Valuentum (val∙u∙n∙tum) [val-yoo-en-tuh-m] Securities Inc. is an independent investment research publisher, offering premium equity reports, dividend reports, and ETF reports, as well as commentary across all sectors/companies, a Best Ideas Newsletter (spanning market caps, asset classes), a Dividend Growth Newsletter, modeling tools/products, and more. Independence and integrity remain our core, and we strive to be a champion of the investor. Valuentum is based in the Chicagoland area. Valuentum is not a money manager, broker, or financial advisor. Valuentum is a publisher of financial information. The Benefits of Premium Membership >> Subscribe Now!

Papa John’s Posts Stellar Comparable Store Sales Growth

Image Shown: Shares of Papa John’s International Inc have surged upwards year-to date as of this writing. By Callum Turcan One company that has proven to be very resilient during the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic is Papa John’s International Inc (PZZA). We significantly raised our fair value estimate for shares of PZZA back in June 2020 (link to the firm’s 16-page Stock Report here). As of this writing, Papa John’s is trading right at the top of our fair value estimate range which sits at $99 per share of PZZA. The company has an asset-light business model and a quality cash flow profile, a product of its focus on franchise operations, though Papa John’s does own some of its store … Read more