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Johnson & Johnson’s Pending Split-Up, Talc Liabilities, New CEO Add Complexity to a Once-Clean Dividend Growth Story

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  Image Shown: J&J continues to face legal liabilities due to talcum powder lawsuits. Image Source: Mike Mozart.  By Brian Nelson, CFA Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) dividend growth story has become much more complicated in recent years. On a price-only basis, shares of the consumer and pharma giant haven’t been nearly as impressive as that of technology names, but the company still has put up a nice 45% price-only return the past five years, further bolstered by a continuous stream of quarterly dividend payments. J&J yields ~2.6% at the time of this writing, and the company reluctantly remains the bedrock of the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, at least for now. The Split-Up Before we dig into J&J’s fourth-quarter 2021 results, … Read more

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

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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

Hard Work and the Trust That Binds

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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

Large Cap Growth Has More Room To Run

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“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

Johnson & Johnson Boosts Guidance Again, Posts Great Earnings Update

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Image Shown: Johnson & Johnson reported strong performance across its three core business operating segments in the third quarter of fiscal 2021. Image Source: Johnson & Johnson – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On October 19, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) reported third quarter earnings for fiscal 2021 (period ended around the end of September 2021) that missed consensus top-line estimates but beat consensus bottom-line estimates. The healthcare giant also raised its full-year guidance (again) for fiscal 2021 as its ‘Pharmaceutical’ segment is growing at a robust pace, its ‘Medical Device’ segment is steadily recovering from the worst of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic, and its ‘Consumer Health’ segment is holding up well. We continue to … Read more

Robotic-Assisted Surgery Idea Intuitive Surgical Rebounds Nicely in Second Quarter

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  Image shown: Intuitive Surgical benefits from a razor-razor blade business model and a large installed base. The more systems it places, the more instruments and accessories are sold. We expect clinical applications for robotic-assisted surgeries to continue to increase. Image source: Intuitive Surgical’s second-quarter earnings press release. By Brian Nelson, CFA On Tuesday, July 20, Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) reported excellent second-quarter results for the three months ended June 30, 2021, with revenue up 71.3% and non-GAAP earnings per share exceeding the consensus estimate by $0.86, to $3.92. The company is the pioneer in the robotic-assisted surgery field, and it continues to set the bar with respect to technologies for minimally invasive care. The company’s da Vinci Surgical System is … Read more

ICYMI — Video: Exclusive 2020 — Furthering the Financial Discipline

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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

ALERT: Raising Cash in the Newsletter Portfolios

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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

With Net Debt and Trading at 40x 2021 Earnings, Mettler-Toledo Is Too Pricey

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Image Source: Metler-Toledo By Callum Turcan and Brian Nelson, CFA On November 9, we increased our fair value estimate for shares of Mettler-Toledo International Inc (MTD) by a significant margin. Though our updated fair value estimate for shares is $870 each, MTD is trading at ~$1,190 at this time, well north of even the high end of our new fair value estimate range (~$1,040). We expect Mettler-Toledo to post greater than expected revenue growth and operating margin expansion over the coming years, which underpins our increased free cash flow growth forecasts for the firm from our prior valuation assessment, but shares still seem way to pricey even after the fair value estimate increase. Mettler-Toledo manufacturers precision instruments used in laboratories, … Read more

Johnson & Johnson Once Again Raises Guidance

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Image Shown: An overview of Johnson & Johnson’s financial performance during the third quarter of fiscal 2020. Image Source: Johnson & Johnson – Third Quarter of Fiscal 2020 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan On October 13, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) reported third quarter fiscal 2020 earnings (period ended September 27, 2020) that beat consensus non-GAAP EPS estimates and consensus GAAP revenue estimates, though its GAAP EPS fell short of consensus estimates likely due to turbulence created by the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic. Johnson & Johnson’s GAAP revenues were up 2% year-over-year last fiscal quarter while its GAAP gross margin stayed broadly flat at 66.9%. A sharp reduction in other expenses resulted in Johnson & Johnson’s GAAP net income more … Read more