MLPs Breaking Out But More Questions

As we stated when we added exposure to the energy sector October 6 (see here), we’d be fools not to acknowledge the technical breakout in units of master limited partnerships the past few weeks. The group still has a long way to go to get back to “even,” but for the sake of retirees who are “DRIPping” into these equities, we sincerely hope some losses can be recuperated. Our experience tells us, however, that the road won’t be an easy one, but we are hoping chartists will be piling into units in the coming days. Fundamental investors may not be aware of this “technical” catalyst to come, but the breakout could be a big one. MLP investors have lost so … Read more

Analyzing Chevron and Important Updates in the Global Energy Industry

Image Source: Chevron Corporation – November 2019 IR Presentation Summary In this note, let’s cover the current state of raw energy resource prices in North America and around the world. We’ll analyze Chevron’s 2020 capital investment and exploration budget, in particular, and the global energy industry at-large. Shares of CVX appear generously valued as of this writing given the numerous headwinds facing the energy industry going forward. By Callum Turcan The world of oil and gas equities has been battling with persistently low raw energy resource prices for some time now. Back in the middle of 2014, a barrel of light sweet crude delivered to Cushing, Oklahoma (home of the West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, benchmark), would fetch over $100. Now … Read more

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

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

Valuentum Exclusive Yearly Round Up

Select the following link to access the Annual Exclusive Call. Select HERE to Access the Exclusive Call Recording ———- Transcript Provided Below. President of Investment Research Brian Nelson: Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for your attendance. Today marks three years since we first launched the Exclusive publication. The Exclusive is our premiere offering for sophisticated investors and builds upon our successes of the past, not only in establishing one of the first methodologies that successfully blends enterprise valuation with behavioral valuation and technical and momentum indicators, but also in making such a process available to individuals, financial advisors and institutional investors in full transparency. The Exclusive publication is in many ways an extension of the strong performance of both the … Read more

Don’t Just Look at the House; Examine the Foundation

Image Source: Lindsay Holmwood Let’s examine how we derive the forecasts in our stock and dividend reports. This article appeared on our website April 2014. It is updated and refreshed today for the benefit of new members. By Kris Rosemann and Brian Nelson, CFA One of the biggest benefits of being a member of Valuentum’s investment services is that we show you all of the numbers – the numbers tell the real story. An author/analyst may tell the story of a company through his/her eyes, but the author/analyst must still convert his/her thoughts and qualitative considerations into quantitative future forecasts to arrive at a fair value estimate of a stock. These future forecasts ultimately determine an intrinsic value estimate of the … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending October 23

Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending October 23. 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 ALPS U.S. Equity High Volatility Put Write Index ETF (HVPW): now $0.3226 per share monthly dividend, was $0.3199. ArcBest (ARCB): now $0.08 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.06. American Electric Power (AEP): now $0.56 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.53.  AptarGroup (ATR): now $0.30 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.28. Associated Banc-Corp (ASB): now $0.11 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.10. Bank of Marin Bancorp (BMRC): … Read more

Assessing Reactions to Trump’s Victory

Image Source: Gage Skidmore Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States of America. Let’s dig into some of the reactions across the market. We’re keeping our cool. By Kris Rosemann and Brian Nelson, CFA The global markets often don’t know what to make of surprises, a characteristic that was on full display as news came rolling in that Donald Trump would soon become the 45th President of the United States, “trumping” Secretary Hillary Clinton in a decisive electoral college victory, despite the popular vote eventually going to the Democratic candidate. In the wee hours of the morning Wednesday, November 9, major markets across the globe were in shock, showing red almost across the board. At one … Read more

2,350-2,750 on the S&P? Could the Coronavirus Catalyze a Financial Crisis?

Image: We think a rather modest sell-off in the market to the target range of 2,350-2,750 on the S&P 500 is rather reasonable in the wake of one of the biggest economic shocks since the Global Financial Crisis. The chart above shows how far markets have advanced since 2011, and an adjustment lower to the target range of 2,350-2,750 is rather modest in such a context and would only bring markets to late 2018 levels (note red box as the target range). The range reflects ~16x S&P 500 12-month forward earnings estimates, as of February 14, adjusted down 10% due to COVID-19. When companies like Visa talk about a couple percentage points taken off of growth rates, one knows that … Read more

Chevron’s Promising Cash Flow Growth Outlook

Image Source: Chevron Corporation – May 2021 IR Presentation By Callum Turcan The outlook for the global energy complex is bright and getting brighter as public health authorities utilize widespread coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) vaccine distribution efforts to put an end to the pandemic. We added shares of Chevron Corporation (CVX) to the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolios on June 27 (link here) in order to gain exposure to the ongoing recovery in the global energy complex via a high-quality integrated oil major. Shares of CVX yield ~5.1% as of this writing. Asset Overview Chevron’s collection of upstream assets (involved in the extraction of raw energy resources from the ground) includes operations all over the world with some notable … Read more

VBI Ratings Not as Impressive As We Would Have Liked in 2022

Image: How the VBI rating system has ranked equities so far this year. By Brian Nelson, CFA At Valuentum, we use the Valuentum Buying Index (VBI) to source ideas into diversified simulated newsletter portfolios, and the VBI may be most applicable to the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio, where we generally like to include ideas when they register a high VBI rating and remove them when they register a low VBI rating. We always use the VBI in a portfolio setting and never by itself. But what about the Valuentum Buying Index ratings, themselves? How did they “perform” during 2022 in one of the worst years for stock market investors in history? Well, not as spectacular as we would have … Read more