The Most Important Topic in Stock Investing

President of Equity Research, Brian Nelson, discusses why price vs. value is the paramount consideration in stock investing. Brian Nelson, CFA: This is Brian Nelson from Valuentum Securities. Today, I wanted to talk about a number of investment concepts that I think are absolutely paramount for every investor to know.  The very first concept is price versus value, and this one is paramount to any investment process. Now I’m not just giving this lip service–this is just one of the core concepts of investing, equity investing. The reality of stock investing is that each company has a present value of future free cash flows that it generates, and those future free cash flows roll up to a fair value, the … Read more

What’s Working (or NOT Working) in Today’s Market?

Image shown: Crude oil continues to lead gainers while consumer staples, REITs, and energy MLPs continue to get shellacked. By Kris Rosemann The stock market during the first few months of 2018 has been marked by a meaningful return to volatility. Commodity prices from crude oil (USO) to aluminum have had their moments in the sun as material supply/demand imbalances of years past continue to sort themselves out, with the help of a few key players, of course (OPEC member nations in the case of crude oil, and Chinese pollution regulations and US trade policy changes in the aluminum example). Geopolitical uncertainty is keeping both world leaders and investors on their toes as the world continues to navigate multiple denuclearization … Read more

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

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

General Electric Gets a Boost; Honeywell Hikes Guidance

Image Source: Jeff Turner General Electric continues to struggle, but its first quarter earnings report came in better than expected as demand across many of its business was positive. We still have no interest in shares. Meanwhile, Honeywell continues to power ahead as it raised its top- and bottom-line guidance for the full year 2018, reflecting a similarly positive demand profile. By Kris Rosemann General Electric Gets a Boost Embattled industry giant General Electric (GE) continues to work to change its fortunes, and strong demand in a number of its businesses helped the company to beat lowered expectations in the first quarter of 2018, results released April 20. Shares received a nice boost on the news, too, but expectations have … Read more

ICYMI: Valuentum’s Improved Stock and ETF Web Pages

Valuentum has rolled out improved stock and ETF web pages on its website valuentum.com/. Now, subscribers can access key proprietary information on the stock and ETF web pages in addition to the customary stock and ETF reports. Dear reader, We have some exciting news that we can’t wait to share with you! At valuentum.com/, we have rolled out new stock and ETF pages that conveniently include a variety of our proprietary metrics from the Dividend Cushion ratio to the Economic Castle rating and beyond! There’s even mouseover functionality so you can learn about how we define the key metrics across our stock-selection and dividend growth methodologies. You’ll still have access to the stock and dividend reports on the landing pages, … Read more

Portfolios: Dividend Growth Versus Best Ideas

Let’s talk about the difference between the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio and the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Hi folks, I wanted to post a short note because it’s important that we continue to explain the difference between the two newsletter portfolios that we provide as part of the individual membership. We publish a Dividend Growth Newsletter and a Best Ideas Newsletter, the former delivered on the 1st of the month and the latter delivered on the 15th of the month. We also cover and provide reports on over 1,000 stocks and dividends on our website, as well as provide quarterly publications like the Dividend100 publication, for example. We cover the bases. We also provide the monthly Nelson Exclusive publication, which by … Read more

Dividend Growth Portfolio: Adding Two New Gems

  We’re making some moves in the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio today. By Brian Nelson, CFA We decided to remove Boeing (BA) and Procter & Gamble (PG) from the Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio recently. You can view the Dividend Growth Newsletter notification log here. We still like both companies a lot. Boeing has a fantastic position and an inherently hedged business portfolio, while Procter & Gamble still retains some of the best consumer brands, even after a rather aggressive brand simplification process. However, Boeing has run too far too fast, and we can’t rule out P&G turning into another General Electric (GE) given its decision, too, to shrink its brand exposure. We’re replacing those two stalwarts with two key players … Read more

Value Investors Starting to Salivate Over Facebook’s Fall

Image Source: DonkeyHotey Facebook is becoming a value investor’s dream: a stock with fantastic free cash flow generation and balance sheet health dealing with transient headline noise. We’re waiting for shares to start to turn upward before we would consider adding to the hypothetical weighting in the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. They look cheap! By Brian Nelson, CFA Facebook’s (FB) fall from grace has been a dream come true for many value investors looking for a company with a pristine balance sheet and tremendous free cash flow generation. By a pristine balance sheet, we mean a huge net cash position (~$41.7 billion) and no debt. By tremendous free cash flow generation, we mean that Facebook hauled in $5.4 billion … Read more

Avoiding Troubled Equities Such as General Electric

The Valuentum process waits for a stock’s price to be moving higher before it is considered. The stock must not only be undervalued on both a discounted cash-flow basis and relative value basis, in our view, but the market must also believe that its true intrinsic value should be higher, too, as evidenced by a rising share price. The process is symmetrical. We also would wait for a company’s share price to break down before we may consider removing an overpriced stock. In some cases, the information contained in prices can even provide clues when to remove an underpriced stock, as in the case of General Electric. By Brian Nelson, CFA There should be no confusion. General Electric (GE) was … Read more

Our Ideas Are Performing Awesome So Far in 2018!!! 6 of the Top 7 of the Dow!

By Brian Nelson, CFA Every day we think about how we can make things easier for our members. Instead of having to visit multiple links on our website with screens, you now have access to one downloadable Excel file where you can sort and rank how you wish. Of course, you can always find those screens in the newsletters, each and every month, too, but we think a weekly data download is a huge value add to our offering. Can you imagine getting updated data every week for 52 weeks of the year for what we charge, let alone two newsletters, hundreds of reports, commentary, and education material? Wow, right? People keep saying we do too much, but when our … Read more