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Does Visa Ever Disappoint?

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Image Source: Visa The credit card network hit all-time highs today. We continue to be huge fans of the company’s fundamentals. By Brian Nelson, CFA Another day, another new high for top-weighted idea in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, Visa (V). Briefing Investor said it succinctly: Visa…is trading at a new all-time high after the company reported better than expected fourth quarter results and gave encouraging guidance for fiscal 2018… Visa owns a global payment network. Unlike American Express (AXP) and Discover (DFS), which own payment networks and issue credit, Visa doesn’t take any credit risk — Capital One (COF) is a bank that issues a lot of credit cards. Visa is a technology company in the financial sector, just … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending September 15

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending September 15. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week American Tower (AMT): now $0.66 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.64. Argan (AGX): now $1.00 per share annual dividend, was $0.70. Broadridge Financial Solutions (BR): now $0.365 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.33. Curtis-Wright (CW): now $0.15 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.13. Entravision (EVC): now $0.05 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.03125. Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (FMAO): now $0.26 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.25. … Read more

The Wisdom of Oaktree’s Howard Marks

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Image Source: emmolos The latest memo from Oaktree’s Howard Marks here should be read and then read again. The section on passive investing is an absolute treasure. “Passive investing is done in vehicles that make no judgments about the soundness of companies and the fairness of prices.  More than $1 billion is flowing daily to “passive managers” (there’s an oxymoron for you) who buy regardless of price.  I’ve always viewed index funds as “freeloaders” who make use of the consensus decisions of active investors for free.  How comfortable can investors be these days, now that fewer and fewer active decisions are being made?” — Howard Marks, Oaktree Capital Financial Tech Services: ACIW, EPAY, FDC, FIS, FISV, FLT, GPN, MA, MELI, … Read more

Best Ideas, Dividend Growth Newsletter Alerts and More

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Image Shown: The stock price performance of Boeing. Let’s take a look at recent news from newsletter portfolio holdings. We’re also parting with a “trade” we never should have made in the first place, and we’re letting go of one of our favorite restaurants in light of deteriorating technicals. This and more… By Brian Nelson, CFA Aside from predicting the ongoing inflation of the current equity market bubble in the US so far in 2017, we also thought crude oil prices (USO) would continue their recovery. Unfortunately, this hasn’t exactly worked out, and US crude oil prices have now entered a “bear market,” now falling below $43 per barrel. Are we saying that we know where crude oil prices are … Read more

Dividend Increases for the Week Ending June 9

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending June 9. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE): now $0.86 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.83. Canterbury Park (CPHC): now $0.06 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.05. Global Payments (GPN): now $0.0133 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.01. Legg Mason (LM): now $0.28 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.22. PetroChina Company Limited (PTR): now $0.4756 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.2692. Sabine Royalty Trust (SBR): now $0.2126 per share … Read more

Valuentum’s 3 Breakthroughs in the Field of Finance and More

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Valuentum’s President Brian Nelson pauses for a picture before speaking at the CFA Society of Houston in March 2017. By Valuentum Editorial Staff Let’s cover Valuentum’s 3 major breakthroughs in the field of finance. The first one is big and may challenge you to rethink everything you think you know about investing. 1. On a logical framework, Valuentum has debunked John C. Bogle’s landmark syllogism that has paved the way for the concept of index investing. Index investing has been built on a logical shortcoming, whether supported by evidence or not. We think it is important that the investment community know of this. Read (pdf): The “Luck” and “Randomness” of Index Funds (2018), Brian Nelson, CFA See video documentation: /FALLACY_of_Index_Funds To … Read more

PayPal’s Growth Engines Still Firing

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Image: PayPal continues to add millions of active customer accounts each quarter. Source: PayPal’s Q1 2016 Investor Update. By Brian Nelson, CFA Revenue up 23%, excluding foreign exchange rate fluctuations. GAAP operating margin up 90 basis points. GAAP earnings per share up 43%, to $0.30. Operating cash flow of $738 million. Free cash flow of $605 million, up 70% year-over-year. 1.4 billion transactions processed. Ended the quarter with 184 million active customer accounts, up 4.5 million. These were just a few headlines in PayPal’s (PYPL) first-quarter report, released April 27. PayPal is mainstream – it’s no longer just a way to send money between friends, if it truly ever was just this. The secular trend toward a cashless society is … Read more

ICYMI — Video: Will Hasty Policy Facilitate the Next Leg Down, or Do We Have It Coming Anyway?

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President of Investment Research and award-winning author of Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation Brian Nelson explains how US policymakers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and how the market may be factoring in too high of a probability of a return to normalcy before 2021. This and more in the latest video report. Summary Make sure you review Value Trap on Amazon. Do so here. We think those that bought equities near the bottom of this swoon may be looking to take profits at present levels. The market is currently reflecting an 80%-85% probability of a return to normalcy before 2021, which we believe is too high at this time. Our main concern is that government … Read more

VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT: 2021 Valuentum Exclusive Call: Inflation Is Good

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Valuentum’s President Brian Michael Nelson, CFA, explains why investors should not fear inflation, why government agencies such as the Fed and Treasury are prioritizing something other than price discovery, why the 10-year Treasury rate is a must-watch metric, and why Valuentum prefers the moaty constituents in large cap growth due to their net cash rich balance sheets, tremendous free cash flow generating potential, and secular growth tailwinds. Transcript: << Valuentum’s Best Ideas On behalf of the Valuentum team, I’d like to present to you our prepared remarks for the Valuentum Exclusive conference call for 2021. It is both an honor and a privilege to share our team’s work with you, and I personally am very grateful for your continued interest … Read more

Nelson: The 16 Most Important Steps To Understand The Stock Market

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A previous version of this article appeared on our website July 21, 2013. Refreshed and updated throughout, as of July 2018. By Brian Nelson, CFA After earning my MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and training stock and credit analysts from large organizations over the past decade or so, I have heard just about every question (though I admit I am still surprised by many things and remain a very humble student of the markets). I’ve also spent years perfecting the discounted cash flow process for large research organizations such as Morningstar and studied under one of the most famed aggressive growth investors of all time, Richard Driehaus. My knowledge runs the gamut from value through … Read more