EADSY

United Tech Ups Guidance; Outlook Bodes Well For Aerospace Supply Chain

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Image Source: hj_west We think activist pressure on United Technologies is unwarranted, and we were highly encouraged by the company’s execution during the first quarter of 2018. Performance at Pratt & Whitney and UTC Aerospace Systems bodes well for the aerospace supply chain. By Brian Nelson, CFA There’s a lot to like about United Technologies (UTX). The company is one of our favorite industrial companies, and we’re probably most fond of its aerospace exposure. We’re against a break-up of the company as we continue to believe United Technologies is on the verge of fantastic top and bottom-line expansion in coming years thanks in part to the burgeoning backlog of unfulfilled deliveries at the airframe makers, Boeing (BA) and Airbus (EADSY). … Read more

First Quarter 2017 Comes To A Close

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“Be sure to continue to study the difference between price and value—just because a stock’s price has advanced doesn’t make it more expensive if the value of its enterprise has increased at a faster rate. If you understand this concept, you may be smarter than 99.9% of the investing population.” – Brian Nelson, CFA By Brian Nelson, CFA The first quarter of 2017 came and went. Including dividends, the S&P 500 (SPY) roared nearly 6% higher during the period thanks to solid gains from the land of technology, an area that we have liked for the longest time. The Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) advanced more than 10% during the period, and key technology holdings in the Dividend Growth Newsletter … Read more

Boeing’s Lift Off, Lockheed’s Caution, and United Tech’s Outlook

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Image Source: Rob Buhlman Just how healthy is the commercial aerospace market? Very — if the size of Boeing’s backlog is any indication. Let’s have a look. By Brian Nelson, CFA In August 2016, we wrote an extensive update on the commercial aerospace market, “Boeing Declares Victory But Farnborough Disappoints,” and we encourage those that are digging into this follow-up note to read that piece first before proceeding. In this note, dated Wednesday, January 25, we’d like to build on that piece and update investors on a few insights we’ve gathered within the aerospace market. First, what was once a key company to assess commercial aerospace demand is no longer. As of November 1, Alcoa (AA) has been severed into … Read more

Opinion: China-US Trade Augmented, Not Paralyzed Under Trump

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Image Source: Fuzzy Gerdes By Brian Nelson, CFA “(Trump’s) tough rhetoric may just be setting the negotiations table with China (and Mexico, too), and Negotiations 101 says you start far away from the middle, and then you compromise to get what you truly want.” Nobody wins from a trade war, and business tycoon and President-elect Donald Trump knows this. It’s Business 101. Many believe, including us, that imposing steep tariffs on imports from China (MCHI, EWH, FXI) had been merely campaign rhetoric to win over votes, but many market participants are still positioning themselves for some degree of fallout nonetheless. China itself is not taking chances either. The country’s state-backed newspaper Global Times fired a shot across the bow November … Read more

Commodity Price Pressures Dinging Industrial Bellwether Expectations

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By Kris Rosemann Commodity resource prices, while suppressed, are said to be stabilizing, but stabilization at low levels does little good for many operators tied to commodity-based end markets. Such is the case for several industrial giants General Electric (GE), 3M (MMM), and Caterpillar (CAT), all of which have seen their worldwide operations impacted by the effect that a prolonged trough in commodity prices has had on global economic growth, “Industrial Bellwethers Hit by Global Economic Growth Concerns.” We recently highlighted the organic growth pressures industrial bellwether Honeywell (HON) has been experiencing, “Honeywell’s Stock Up 170% Since End of 2009; GE a Better Bet?” and its peers have been echoing its concerns. GE reported third-quarter earnings October 21, and while … Read more

3D Printing: Can We Print Some Stability?

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Industrial bellwether and newsletter portfolio holding General Electric’s acquisition of two European 3D printing companies has brought the budding technology back to the fore of investor’s minds. Let’s take a look at some of the major players in the space as well as how the market may develop in coming years. By Kris Rosemann 3D printing may have once seemed like a technology we would only see in a futuristic sci-fi movie, but it is now a reality and has been so for some time. Though it will inevitably revolutionize the $12 trillion global manufacturing market and is one of the highest growth potential areas, plenty of questions remain surrounding the foundation of the industry that continues to be laid, … Read more

Alcoa Continues Swoon, Revises Aerospace 2016 Outlook to 6%-8% Expansion

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Image Source: Boeing; image source: Alcoa Alcoa (AA) kicked off first-quarter 2016 earnings season April 12, but nobody reading our work should have much interest in shares. Our $10 fair value estimate for the company explains the lack of opportunity, and we laid in out in no uncertain terms in April 2015 that we thought, “The Time to Consider Owning Alcoa Has Passed.” Even a few months before that write-up, we said the aluminum giant was trading at a peak multiple on peak earnings, a classic valuation “no-no,” and since that time, shares of Alcoa have fallen more than 40%, “Alcoa Kicks Off Fourth Quarter (2014) Earnings Season:” From our Jan 13, 2015 article: Would we ever considering owning Alcoa … Read more

Debt, Debt and More Debt

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Image Source: Michael Fleshman Many readers may be familiar with the rhetoric of the Presidential Election Cycle of 2016 and Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders’ view on making “college tuition free and debt free.” You can take a read of the 6 steps Bernie will take as president to make college debt-free here. Many may find his last point rather intrusive to the heartbeat of the American economy and the driver behind innovation and standard-of-living improvements, but we’ll leave that conversation for another day. But what’s the shocking statistic, right? Get this – and I hope you are sitting down. According to an article by the Journal, “more than 40% of Americans who borrowed from the government’s main student-loan program aren’t … Read more

Giddy Up – It’s Earnings Season!

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By Brian Nelson, CFA During the trading session January 27, Apple (AAPL) failed to turn the tide of a disappointing fiscal 2016 first-quarter report (calendar fourth-quarter), “Apple Will Go Lower…And It Will Be ‘Forced’ Into Acquisitions,” and coupled with a Fed statement, where the Committee left interest rates unchanged, as expected, many market observers read between the lines and hit the sell button. On the basis of some of the concerns we’ve outlined, “Not Doom and Gloom – But Just Cautious,” we can completely understand the hesitancy by participants to stay fully exposed to this tumultuous equity market. In many ways, that the Fed has hit the brakes just a few weeks after the long-anticipated rate hike means the global … Read more