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FAQ: How Is Your Best Ideas Portfolio Doing This Year?

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At Valuentum, we task ourselves with a tall order. While most investment newsletters compare themselves to a market benchmark, we go one step further. We want to deliver positive returns to you, our subscriber, year after year, in addition to outperforming the market benchmark. Below, we outline a table that shows the outperformance we provided to our members since the time they joined.  So, for example, if you joined as a member on April 13, 2012 our Best Ideas portfolio has offered 3.8 percentage points of outperformance. Or, if you joined on July 13, 2011, our Best Ideas portfolio has offered 22 percentage points of outperformance. Importantly, did you know that, according to Advisor One, only 13% of hedge funds are beating the S&P … Read more

Toll Brothers’ Fourth Quarter Results Were Fantastic

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Tuesday morning, one of the nation’s premier homebuilders, Toll Brothers (click ticker for report: ) reported spectacular fourth quarter results. Revenues surged 48% year-over-year to $632.8 million, well ahead of consensus expectations. Earnings per share jumped to $2.35 per share from $0.09 a year ago thanks to the release of deferred tax assets. Pretax income jumped nearly 300% year-over-year to $60.7 million. Key metrics for Toll’s business were mostly strong across the board. Net signed contracts in the fourth quarter jumped 70% year-over-year to 1,098 units, with a 75% surge in value to $684.1 million. The firm’s backlog jumped 54% to 2,569 units, with the value of that backlog increasing 70% to $1.67 billion. Stronger pricing also helped gross margins … Read more

Lowe’s Results Continue to Improve, But Lag Home Depot

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Hardware retailer Lowe’s (click ticker for report: ) reported third quarter results that were roughly in-line with consensus expectations. Revenue grew a paltry 1.9% year-over-year to $12.1 billion, slightly better than expected. Earnings improved tremendously thanks to higher gross margins and cost cutting, nearly doubling year-over-year to $0.35 per share. Same-store sales growth didn’t fare any better than the company-wide sales growth, increasing 1.8% in both the US and company-wide, though we expect some acceleration due to Hurricane Sandy in the fourth quarter (management agrees). Still, the pace of expansion doesn’t compare favorably to Home Depot (click ticker for report: ), which has been growing same-store sales closer to 4.2% due to its superior execution, in our view. Gross margins … Read more

Housing Market Strength Propels Home Depot

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Thanks to strength in the US housing market, home improvement giant Home Depot (click ticker for report: ) posted terrific third quarter results this morning. Revenues grew 4.6% year-over-year to $18.1 billion, easily exceeding consensus estimates. Earnings, excluding the closing of some unproductive stores in China, increased 23% year-over-year to $0.74 per share. Increased productivity helped tremendously, as aggregate same-store sales grew 4.2% year-over-year, and US same-store sales increased 4.3% year-over-year, driven by higher average tickets and more transactions. Gross margins ticked up about 20 basis points year-over-year to 34.6%, reflecting the higher average ticket prices and better appliance sales. Appliance sales are a good indicator of consumer confidence in the housing market, in our view. Management noted that credit … Read more

Search Dividend Reports by Company Name: F to J

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Going forward, please use the ‘Symbol’ search box to download stock and dividend reports of companies you are interested in. The ‘Symbol’ search box can be found in our website header. Image shown from above. Use the active search box in the website header above. Learn more about your membership >>  Note: We have now discontinued this list. Please use the ‘Symbol’ search box in the website header for stock and dividend reports. Please read about our Valuentum Dividend Cushion score (ratio) here. Just having access to this valuable metric alone could save your income portfolio thousands of dollars! The past meets the future as we showcase the Valuentum Dividend Cushion scores of Dividend Aristocrats in this article (click here). The dividend reports below … Read more

Home Depot Issues Fantastic Fourth-Quarter Results; Another Positive Sign for US Housing

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Home Depot (HD) reported solid fiscal fourth-quarter results Tuesday that revealed strong comparable store sales and signs that the US housing market continues to strengthen. However, we think the firm’s shares are getting a bit expensive following its price move after earnings, and our $38 per share fair value estimate for the world’s largest home-improvement retailer remains unchanged. Home Depot’s revenue advanced 5.9% in the fourth quarter from the same period a year ago thanks to a 5.7% jump in comparable store sales (6.1% in the US). The number of customer transactions increased 3.6%, while the average ticket expanded 2.4%. Unseasonally warmer weather and an improving housing market buoyed results and stimulated home-improvement demand in the period. We continue to … Read more