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Video Game Industry Adapting to Consumers and Technology

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Image Source: steamXO Adapting to consumer consumption trends is a necessity for video game makers, and rapidly improving technology standards are impacting the industry as producers work to deliver high-quality entertainment effectively. Long-term demand trends are generally bright, but continual innovation and adaptation will be necessary. By Kris Rosemann Key Takeaways Video game companies compete with all forms of entertainment for discretionary spending, and competition has never been greater. Business models aimed at driving recurring revenue have disappointed with respect to their ability to reduce lumpy financial performance. Evolving delivery methods cannot reduce the hit-based nature of the industry. We’re not interested in adding exposure to the space, but operators within it do have some attractive qualities, not the least … Read more

Questions Answered!

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Image shown: The S&P 500 (SPY) performance and the timing of when we went to “fully invested” in the simulated newsletter portfolios, the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter. No changes to simulated newsletter portfolios. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hi everyone! Trust you are doing great. Here’s what you need to know about the broader market backdrop.  1) We’ve been expecting a more dovish Fed as the yield curve continues to threaten material inversion. We doubt the Fed will materially and purposefully invert it. The behavioral risks of actually causing a recession by doing so are too great. That means yield-oriented equities may continue to breathe a sigh of relief. This is good for ideas in the simulated Dividend … Read more

Alphabet Working to Balance Rising Spending and Driving Revenue Growth

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Alphabet’s top-line growth remains impressive, but rising costs continue to pressure margin performance. Free cash flow generation is still robust, which provides the backbone for its fortress-like balance sheet, but capital spending levels advanced at a significant rate in 2018. By Kris Rosemann Simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio idea Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) turned in a strong finish to 2018, but rising mobile-driven traffic acquisition costs are expected to continue weighing on margin performance. Revenue at Alphabet in the fourth quarter, results released February 4, jumped 22% on a year-over-year basis as reported thanks to its continued strength in Mobile Search as well as support from YouTube, Cloud, and Desktop Search, but operating income growth came in at only ~7% as … Read more

A Great Couple Months! Apple Pops!

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Image shown: The markets continue to rally significantly since the near-term bottom in December. Here’s the email we sent to members December 26.  No changes to simulated newsletter portfolios. By Brian Nelson, CFA Hope you are doing great. Believe it or not, the wind chill may have hit 50 or 60 below-zero in Woodstock, Illinois this morning. The polar vortex has most of the Midwest running for cover. Even the Chicago Bears have changed their name to the Chicago Polar Bears. Just kidding. In any case, the markets don’t mind. We continue to recover from the December lows, and we’ve been staying mighty busy. For starters, if you haven’t read Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation, you’re not going to get as … Read more

Consider Selling Discipline = Systematic, Forward-looking, Repeatable

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Image shown: An illustration of Valuentum’s call on Kinder Morgan during 2015. You can read about this in more detail in the Preface of Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation. For a consider-selling discipline to be successful, it must be systematic, forward-looking and repeatable. The Valuentum process worked equally well with General Electric during 2017 (image later in note). No changes to simulated newsletter portfolios. By Brian Nelson, CFA Good morning everyone! The markets took a shellacking yesterday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) falling over 300 points during the trading session January 22. Had there not been a near-100 point leap in the Dow during the past few minutes of trading, the fallout may have been worse. Most are … Read more

Conference Call Coming Soon, Catch Up This Weekend

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Image shown: The markets continue to rally significantly since the near-term bottom in December. Here’s the email we sent to members December 26.  No changes to simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio (contact us if you missed the latest notification regarding the simulated High Yield Dividend Newsletter portfolio). This article was sent to members via email January 19. That email can be accessed at the link that follows this article. Conference Call Monday, January 28, 11amET/10amCT. We’ll talk about website navigation, how to use the stock and dividend reports, and dig deep into our capital-appreciation and dividend growth methodology. Details to follow, but add this date/time to your calendar. Read what some of our members have … Read more

Markets Continue to Recover

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Image shown: The markets continue to rally significantly since the near-term bottom in December. The decision to move the cash “weightings” to zero in the simulated portfolios of the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter during the trading session December 27 has been quite rewarding for members that have been following our research and newsletters. The S&P 500 SPDR. No Changes to Simulated Newsletter portfolios. This article was sent to members via email January 18. The original email can be accessed via the link that follows this article. Brian Nelson, CFA The S&P 500 (SPY) continues to march higher in this young 2019, and we trust many of you are pleased with what is turning into quite a nice … Read more

Markets Still Bouncing Nicely

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Image shown: This holiday season was mighty hectic, and not many were anticipating the volatility we experienced. Here’s where the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolios went to “fully invested,” reducing a 30% and 20% cash “weighting” at the high end of their respective ranges for each portfolio, respectively. Email. No Changes to Simulated Newsletter portfolios Brian Nelson, CFA After what perhaps has been the most volatile December in stock market history, the markets are off to the races in January. We continue to watch the broader equity markets closely, but directionally the call to go to “zero” in cash after the close December 26 has worked out, for anyone that received the notification after that date. … Read more

Value Trap, More Volatility; We’re Waiting and Watching

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Image shown: The decision to remove GE from the simulated newsletter portfolios when we did may have been our best call yet.  In this note, let’s talk about the importance of reading Value Trap, learn why we’ve gone “fully invested,” talk a little bit about put options, learn some of the intricacies of the Valuentum process, find out where to find VBI rankings to download and sort, and talk about some of our recently-highlighted ideas in the simulated newsletter portfolios. No Changes to Simulated Newsletter portfolios Brian Nelson, CFA Trust you are having a wonderful Monday morning! I hope that many of you made the conference call last Thursday at 11amET, but if you didn’t, we’ll have another one coming soon. … Read more

The Intricacies of the Valuentum Process

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Let’s take a quick overview of the Valuentum processes for capital appreciation and dividend growth with a discussion of how we use the Valuentum Buying Index and the Dividend Cushion ratio. By Brian Nelson, CFA There is a lot behind the Valuentum processes for capital appreciation and dividend growth, respectively, and both the criteria for inclusion to either the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio are different. Our best ideas at any time, however, are always included in the simulated newsletter portfolios. We use our research as a means to identify new ideas for consideration in the simulated newsletter portfolios, as well as to consider removing ideas from the simulated newsletter portfolios. As it relates to … Read more