Video: We Expect A Huge Market Flush! Looking to “Raise” Incremental Cash

Video: Valuentum’s Brian Nelson, CFA, breaks down the current market environment, highlighting reasons for the poor market sentiment driven by “tapped out” consumers and investors alike. He expects a big market “flush,” and a challenging next couple years but remains a big fan of stocks for the long haul. Valuentum continues to seek to “raise” incremental cash in the simulated newsletter portfolios as it prepares to weather the storm. Video length: ~10 minutes. –——— Tickerized for holdings in the SPY. 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 … Read more

Valuentum’s Unmatched Product Suite

Hi everyone! — We continue to be huge believers in the concept of enterprise valuation, which emphasizes the key cash-based sources of intrinsic value–net cash on the balance sheet and strong and growing future expected free cash flows. Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) remain two of the most underpriced ideas on the market today, and we remain huge fans of their tremendous long-term investment prospects. — There are a couple things worth reminding readers, however. A good relevant rule of thumb I learned early in my career working for my first portfolio manager is that a stock’s return in the near term is driven roughly 40% by the market, 30% by the industry it operates in, and 30% … Read more

Nelson: I Have Been Wrong About the Prospect of Near-Term Inflationary-Driven Earnings Tailwinds

Transcript During the past several weeks, we’ve grown increasingly concerned about the health of consumer-tied entities across not only the consumer staples but also the consumer discretionary spaces. Many consumer staples entities, while raising prices, aren’t raising them fast enough to drive operating-income and bottom-line expansion, while many consumer-discretionary companies are facing higher freight and logistics costs and weaker performance in China, perhaps best revealed by Nike’s most recently-reported quarter, where inventory advanced 23% compared to the prior-year period. The tell-tale sign about the health of the consumer may be Amazon (AMZN) Prime Day, which is coming up on July 12-13, but based on many of the reports we’ve monitored this past earnings season, even if sales are strong on … Read more

Ameresco Posts Solid First Quarter Earnings Update

Image Source: Ameresco Inc – First Quarter of 2022 Earnings Press Release By Callum Turcan The rise of ESG investing and the political shift towards encouraging developments within the realm of green energy–from renewable energy projects to efforts to reduce water consumption and much more–has created numerous opportunities for investors. Ameresco Inc (AMRC) offers energy efficiency solutions, infrastructure upgrades, and renewable energy solutions to its customers. The company also operates some of the renewable energy facilities it helps develop such as solar farms and biogas plants. Ameresco provides its services all over the globe though the US remains its most important market (and the source of over 90% of its revenues). In the US, Ameresco will often help its clients … Read more

Our Report on Stocks in the Utilities (Large) Industry

Image Source: doggo Structure of the Utilities Industry Utilities provide an essential service, generally operate in a near-monopoly position, and benefit from significant barriers to entry due to the capital intensity of new projects and regulatory/environmental requirements. Regulatory frameworks differ across the grid, but most utilities benefit from an assured rate of return on capital investments through predetermined rate structures, where cost adjustments are made by authorities periodically. Most constituents benefit from stable operations and generally lower debt financing, though credit ratings should be monitored closely. We like the structure of the group. Please select here (pdf) to download the report on utilities in our coverage. —– Valuentum members have access to our 16-page stock reports, Valuentum Buying Index ratings, … Read more

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

Image: Erica Nicol Takeaways: Junk tech should continue to collapse, but the stylistic area of large cap growth and big cap tech should remain resilient. Moderately elevated levels of inflation coupled with interest rates hovering at all-time lows isn’t a terrible combination. In fact, it’s not bad at all. The markets are digesting the huge gains of the past few years so far in 2022, and the excesses in ARKK funds, crypto, SPACs, and meme stocks are being rid from the system. Our best ideas are “outperforming” the very benchmarks that are outperforming everyone else. The BIN portfolio is down 6.4% and the DGN portfolio is down 3.2% year to date. The SPY is down 7.8%, while the average investor … Read more

Ameresco Has Soared, Boosts Guidance (Again)

Image Shown: Shares of Ameresco Inc have boomed higher since we first wrote about the company on V.com back in August 2020. We include Ameresco as an idea in our ESG Newsletter portfolio and see ample room for further capital appreciation upside. By Callum Turcan On November 1, Ameresco Inc (AMRC) reported third-quarter 2021 earnings that missed top-line consensus estimates but beat bottom-line numbers. The company also raised its full-year guidance (again) for 2021 which saw it increase the midpoint of its revenue, gross margin, non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA, and non-GAAP EPS forecast. Ameresco also raised its full-year guidance for 2021 when it published its first quarter 2021 earnings report. We include Ameresco as an idea in the new ESG Newsletter … Read more

Hard Work and the Trust That Binds

Image Source: Terry Johnson By Brian Nelson, CFA We’ll have our traditional Valuentum Weekly email coming out on Sunday, and I’m excited to say our team is putting the finishing touches on our technology industry update, so we’ll have a whole bunch of fresh reports for you to look at Sunday evening/Monday morning. It’s easy to forget how much we’ve been through the past two years. Often, we forget how helpful the warning that markets were going to crash was the weekend before they did on February 22, 2020, “Is a Stock Market Crash Coming? – Coronavirus Update and P/E Ratios,” how we thought dollar-cost-averaging made sense at the bottom in March 2020, and how we went “all-in” in April … Read more

Microsoft’s Dividend Is Rock Solid But Why?

Image Shown: Valuentum’s Dividend Report on Microsoft. The Dividend Cushion Ratio Deconstruction reveals the numerator and denominator of the Dividend Cushion ratio for Microsoft. At the core, the larger the numerator, or the healthier a company’s balance sheet and future free cash flow generation, relative to the denominator, or a company’s cash dividend obligations, the more durable the dividend. In the context of the Dividend Cushion ratio, Microsoft’s numerator is larger than its denominator suggesting strong dividend coverage in the future. The Dividend Cushion Ratio Deconstruction image puts sources of free cash in the context of financial obligations next to expected cash dividend payments over the next 5 years on a side-by-side comparison. Because the Dividend Cushion ratio and many … 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